iienoe folentraniien vet re 3s 


SCIENCE Ryo 


Pu HYSIOGNOMY 
SANE SS 



























Pek : ; 
—= 
ae 
-HYSIOGNOMY 
- ; AND 


BY 


PAOLO MANTEGAZZA, 





S tor ; ; Director of the National Museum of Anthropology, I ee Pe. 


President of the Italian Society a Anthropology. 


| ‘Boston COLLEGK Te 
) CHESTNUT HILL, Ma 


a | 


SCRIBNER & WELFORD, 
443 & 745 BROADWAY, 
NEW YORK. 


ee 


1890. 





‘we 


“ 

aD 
» 

— 











petri, G/T, 


Tuts book is a page of psychology—a study on the human 
countenance and on human expression. Scientific both 
in its end and in its method, it takes up the study of 
expression at the point where Darwin left it, and modestly 
claims to have gone a step further. 

I have set myself the task of separating, once for all, 
positive observations from the number of bad guesses, 
ingenious conjectures, which have hitherto encumbered the 
path of these studies. My wish has been to render to 
science that which is due to science, and to imagination 
that which is due to imagination. The human countenance 
interests all ; it is a book in which all must read, every day 
and every hour. The psychologist and artist will find in 
this work new facts and facts already known, but interpreted 
by new theories. Perhaps it may also throw into pro- 
minence some of the laws to which human expression is 


subject. 
Pranks 














CoN. LE NUS, 
er a 
PART i —THE HUMAN COUNTENANCE. 


Es is 


CHAL TERT 


STORICAL SKETCH OF THE SCIENCE OF PHYSIOGNOMY 
AND OF HUMAN EXPRESSION. : ; 


UMAN FACE. ; : : hae 


EATURES OF THE HUMAN FACE Z z : 


Bs he forehead—The eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes—The 
nose—The mouth—The chin—The cheeks—The ears 
—The teeth. 


CHAPTER IV. 


HAIR AND THE BEARD—MOLES—WRINKLES . : 


PAGE 


i 


55 


vili CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER V. 


PAGE 
COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY OF THE HUMAN FACE. ‘ 72 


esthetic of the face. 


PART II.—THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS. 


CHAPTER YE 


THE ALPHABET OF EXPRESSION ’ 0 . : 79 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE DARWINIAN LAWS OF EXPRESSION yo : 89 


CHAPTER VITI. 


CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIONS—GENERAL VIEW OF ALL 


PHENOMENA OF EXPRESSION . : ; . 96 
CHAPTER IX. 

THE EXPRESSION GF PLEASURE " : F . « MOS 
CHAP TERE 

THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN : ; . : a: ae 
CHAPTER XI. 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE AND OF BENEVOLENCE : . a4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XI. 


EXPRESSION OF DEVOTION, OF VENERATION, AND OF 
RELIGIOUS FEELING 5 : A A : 


CHAPTER XIII. 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, OF CRUELTY, AND OF PASSION . 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE EXPRESSION OF PRIDE, VANITY, HAUGHTINESS, 
MODESTY, AND HUMILIATION 


CHAPTER XV. 


EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL FEELINGS, FEAR, DISTRUST— 
DESCRIPTION OF TIMIDITY ACCORDING TO THE OLD 
PHYSIOGNOMISTS : e : ‘ : 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT ; : a ‘ 


CHAPTER XVII. 


GENERAL EXPRESSIONS—REPOSE AND ACTION, DISQUIETUDE, 
IMPATIENCE, EXPECTATION, DESIRE . : ‘ 


Characters of expression according to age, sex, tempera- 
ment, character, education. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


RACIAL AND PROFESSIONAL EXPRESSION > F 7 


CHAPTER XIX, 


THE MODERATORS AND DISTURBERS OF EXPRESSION . 


PAGE 


150 


159 


180 


193 


200 


213 


230 


245 


x CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XxX. 


CRITERIA FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE STRENGTH OF 
AN EMOTION BY THE DEGREE OF THE EXPRESSION 


CHAPTER XXI. 


Tue Five VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE * 


The physiological verdict—The good and evil mein— 
Pathological physiognomies. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


CRITERIA FOR JUDGING THE MorAL WORTH OF A PHYSI- 
OGNOMY 


The good and the evil face. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


CRITERIA FOR JUDGING THE INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF A 
FACE : : : . é 


The stupid and the intelligent face. 


CHAPTER AXIV 


THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF GESTURES AND THE EXPRESSION OF 
CLOTHES 


APPENDIX. 


THE Eves, HAIR, AND BEARD IN THE ITALIAN RACES 


PLATES 
INDEX 


PAGE 


254 


261 


274 


283 


292 


301 


311 
319 


PHYSIOGNOMY 


AND THE 


Peete 5ION OF EMOTIONS. 





meted. f. 
THE HUMAN COUNTENANCE. 





Char Le RT. 


HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE SCIENCE OF PHYSIOGNOMY 
AND OF HUMAN EXPRESSION. 


In the restricted portion of the world which our human 
pu eyes can penetrate we see the first germs of living beings 
born and developing in conformity with laws identical 
with those which rule over the birth and evolution of 
sciences in the tranquil laboratory of the intellect. At 
first a confused vortex of atoms appears, each seeking 
the other and grouping themselves in attempts to form 
the first combinations of force and the simplest symme- 
tries of form. Soon the organs of inferior order indis- 
tinctly manifest themselves; the parts which were at 
first confused are differentiated little by little. In propor- 
tion as the members take shape and their articulations 
are established, they go on to mark out a scale of large 
things, enclosing others small and very small, which will 
in turn become very large; in like manner an infinite 


series of germs contained in one germ will successively 
I 


2 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


give birth to new forms and to new descendants. And 
finally we find ourselves face to face with an organism, 
provided with distinct members, which claims for itself a 
part of space, a share of the sun, and a name. Thus 
are born the mushroom and the oak, the ant and the 
man ; in like manner science too is born and develops. 

The progress of all science has also been the progress 
of that science which we call physiognomy or metoposcopy, 
different names signifying the same thing—the study of 
the human countenance. “Long before these words had 
found a place in our dictionaries, and in the history of 
science, man had looked into the face of his fellow-man 
to read there joy and pain, hatred and love, and had sought 
to draw thence conclusions both curious and of daily 
practical use. There is no untutored people, no rudimen- 
tary language which has not incorporated in some proverb 
the result of these first sports of divination. Humpbacks, 
squints, sparkling or dull eyes, the varying length of the 
nose, the varying width of the mouth, all are honoured or 
condemned in popular proverbs. These proverbs are the 
first germs of the embryonic substance which later on 
yield materials for a new science. 

In these first attempts we always meet the infantine 
inexperience of ignorance; sympathies and antipathies are 
there translated into irrefragable dogmas and verdicts 
without appeal; instinct and sentiment hold the place of 
observation and calculation. All is seasoned with the 
magic which is one of the original sins of the human 
family. This seasoning always becomes more abundant in 
proportion as the need of new foods increases, and ends by 
being almost entirely substituted for the real nourishment, 
which is insufficient to satisfy the great hunger. And then 
man, not contented to examine the human face and 
translate it into proverbs and into physiognomical laws of 
fortuitous coincidences or suggestions of sympathy and 
antipathy, goes on to seek in the heavens and among the 


ta ston CAL SKETCH. 3 


stars relations between the constellations and our features, 
and erects this odd edifice of judicial astrology—a veritable 
white magic applied to the study of the human face. 
Magic demands a magician; he envelops himself in the 
mystery of the inconceivable to explain the unintelligible, 
and magic becomes an industry, a trade which fattens a 
small number of knaves at the expense of a large number 
of fools. 

Such is the true origin, little honourable as it may be, of 
Physiognomy. Then come the first writers, who collect 
from the mouths of the people and in their proverbs the 
scattered materials of the new science; they add numerous 
conjectures of their own, give a name to their doctrine, and 
return to the ignorant crowd in a dogmatic form all that 
they first received from them. A literature in its childhood 
is always encyclopedic. Therefore the first elements of 
physiognomy are to be found in the Bible, in the 
Fathers, in the philosophers, and in the poets. -Giovanni 
Battista Dalla Porta was right when he wrote on the title- 
page of the beautiful “rst Look of his work! that 
phystognomy was born of natural principles; and in his 
preamble, in a page abounding in audacity and powerful 
historical syntheses, he was justified in showing how 
the germs of the science of which he was beginning 
the study were to be found scattered in the works of the 
great minds who had preceded him. I have pleasure in 
quoting some passages. 

“ Adamantius said that the character is expressed by the 
forehead and the eyes, even when the mouth is silent. 
The philosopher Cleanthes was wont to say, after Zeno, 
that dispositions might be recognised from the face. The 
Pythagoreans had a rule, according to Iamblichus, when 
disciples came to them demanding to be instructed, to 
accept none, unless they had ascertained by clear 


1 Gio. Battista Dalla Porta Napolitano, Della Fisonomia dell’ huomo, 
Libri sei Padova, 1627, p. I. 


4 PH YVSIOGNOM Y. 


indications, drawn from their countenances and their 
whole external appearance, that they would succeed in 
learning. They said that nature constitutes the body after 
the soul, and gives to this the instruments which are 
necessary for it, that she shows us in the body the image of 
the soul, or rather that the one is the pattern of the other. 
We read in Plato that Socrates admitted none to philoso- 
phy unless assured by examining his face that he was 
suited to it. 

‘*The physiognomy of Alcibiades indicated, said Plutarch, 
that he was destined to raise himself to the highest rank in 
the republic. Plato, and after him Aristotle, said that 
nature proportions the body to the activity of the soul. 
In fact every instrument which is made with a view to 
a certain thing must be proportioned to this thing. All 
the parts of the body are made for some thing, and this 
cause for which a thing is made is an action; whence it 
clearly follows that the body altogether has been created by 
nature with a view to an excellent action. Nestor, 
according to Homer, by the resemblance which he finds 
in the face of Telemachus, conjectures as to what his soul 
must be. 

““*By certain signs that I discern upon thy face, O 
illustrious youth, I recognise whose son thou art. I do 
not wonder to see such splendour in thy eyes. Thy 
face is proud and generous, thy great eloquence and 
thy reason recall to me thy father. What youth could 
such a one as thou be, were he not the son of the great 
Ulysses ?’” 

Aristotle wrote a book on the physiognomy, and Plato, 
although he was not an evolutionist, compared the physiog- 
nomy of man to that of animals. Dalla Porta, even while 
he refuted the great Greek philosopher on this point, and 
maintained that it was unreasonable to imagine that it 
would be possible to find a man whose body was entirely 
similar to that of an animal, is still continually making 


Mist ORICAL SKETCH. 5 


analogies in his work between man and the animals, and 
illustrates his comparisons by numerous figures. 

To quote an example, Plato had said that the genus lion 
must be generous and bold; in other words, that a man 
would be courageous if he had something of the lion, such 
as a broad chest, wide and powerful shoulders, etc. In his 
turn, Dalla Porta continually draws parallels between pea- 
cocks, dogs, horses, asses, oxen, cocks, pigs, and other 
brutes on the one side, and men on the other. Two 
examples will suffice to show up to what point the 
Neapolitan physiognomist pushed these analogies. On 
page 115 dzs of the edition already quoted he compares a 
marine fish, the skate, with the Emperor Domitian— 

“In the following plate is seen the face of Domitian 
represented after his statue in marble and antique medals, 
and opposite a skate from nature.” 

And on page 164 dzs are seen the lower limbs of an ape 
and those of a man with this indication— 

“In the place below will be found the buttocks of the 
ape and those of a thin and withered man.” 

It appears, however, that these impious analogies formed 
no obstacle in those days to dying in the odour of sanctity, 
for Dalla Porta ended his days surrounded by universal 
veneration, and was interred in a church. i 

The Jesuit Niquetius, who was one of the most learned 
among those who wrote upon physiognomy in the seven- 
teenth century, quotes in his work 129 authors, without 
counting, he says, Scripfuram sacram, que, ut att Origines, 
scientiarum est universitas, and among them St. Ambrose, 
St. Gregory the Great, St. Gregory of Nanzianzen, St. 
Gregory of Nyssus, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustin, Saint 
Peter Damien, Saint Thomas, among the saints; Aristotle, 
Plato, Cardano, Seneca, Tertullian, among the _philo- 
sophers and the theologians; Xenophon, Strabo, Plutarch, 
Tacitus, among the historians; Aristophanes, Juvenal, 
Lucan, Lucian, Martial, Petronius, among the poets; 


“6 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


Averroes, Avicenna, Hippocrates, Celsus, Galen, Pliny, 
among the naturalists and physicians.+ 

The seventeenth century was the golden age of astro- 
logical or semi-astrological physiognomy. Then, more 
than ever, men had a passion for the mysterious, for 
enigmas which had a scientific colouring. A Spanish 
writer, Jerome Cortes, born at Valencia, said naively in a | 
very curious. book, ‘ Physiognomy is nothing but an 
ingenious and subtle science of human nature, thanks to 
which one may know the good or bad complexion, the 
virtues or vices, of the man considered as an animal.” ? 

In fact, the good Cortes, to be consistent with his 
definition, gave us in his volume after his treatise on the 
physiognomy other curious things—such as the praise of 
rosemary (Zratato segundo de las excelencias del Romero 
y su calidad), the praise of the elixir of life, and a number 
of recipes, among which was that of a powder of frogs, gue 
tiene virtud de soldar las venas rompidas y un unguento 
preciosissimo para sanar toda fistola y Maga vieja, y otros 
males (which has the property of healing burst veins, and 
which is a very precious ointment to cure all fistulas and 
old wounds, and other evils). 

The works on judicial astronomy are very numerous. 
In them the most singular and ridiculous assertions are 
found. One would say that these books must have been 
written either by a fool or a drunkard. It will be enough 
to quote as an example Cardano,? who has hazarded the 
oddest forecasts in his work, not only as to the character as 
conjectured from the physiognomy, its wrinkles and its 


1 R. P. Honorato Nicquetio, e Societate, Jesu sacerdotis Theologi, 
Physiognomia humana libris iv. distincta. Editio prima, Lugduni, 
1648. 

2 Hieronymo Cortes, Phisonomie y varios Secretos de Naturaleza, 
etc. Barcelona, 1610. 

3 H. Cardani Medici Mediolanensis, Metoposcopia, etc. Lutetze 
Parisiorum, 1658. 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. 7 


spots, but also as to the events which would happen in the 
course of life. In Plate I., figs. a, 4, ¢ specimens from his 
Fisonomia astrologica will be found. 

On the forehead seven lines are drawn, consecrated, 
proceeding from above down to Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, 
the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. As the 
lines were straight, oblique, or crossed, so the response 
varied. Fig. 4, for example, represents a man who, 
according to the signs on his forehead, was doomed to die 
by hanging or by drowning. Fig. ¢ another who must of 
necessity be ¢ris¢zs or véttosus. 

De la Chambre exposes in these terms the sophistry on 
which astrological physiognomy is founded!— 

““The head is indubitably the epitome of the whole 
heavens: like these it has its constellations and its signs. 
But if we note the stars, their situation and their move- 
ments, without knowing their nature, nor why they are 
thus disposed, we may say as much of all parts of the 
face.” . 

De la Chambre is a judicious writer. Although he lived in 
the midst of astrology and chiromancy he revolted against 
the prejudices of his time, and he dared, although timidly, 
to write a chapter entitled—Zhe judgment we must pass 
on Chiromancy and Metoposcopy.2 He does not deny 
all, he does not assent to all, and concludes. by saying that 
it is necessary to guard against exaggerations, that there is 
much truth in astrology, but not so much as the chiro- 
mancist astrologers pretend. 

It was, however, Dalla Porta who had the honour of 
combatting judicial astrology unmasked. After the book 
which we have already quoted, he published another— 

Of Celestial Physiognomy: six books in which the falsehood 
of judicial astronomy is established, and wherein the way by 


1 De la Chambre, ZL’art de connaitre les hommes. Amsterdam, 
1660. 
2 [bidem, p. 268. 


8 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


which one may recognise in natural causes all that the aspect, 
the appearance, and the features of men can physically signify 
and announce, ts put forth. (Padua, 1623.) 

In this work the Neapolitan author demonstrates that the 
features of a man are due to his temperament and not to 
the stars; and having cited as an example the opinions 
of astrologers on the character of men born under the 
influence of Saturn, he adds— 

‘We have reported their opinions, not to approve them, 
but to refute them as o/d women’s stories. Wissimulating 
their falsehood, presenting as coming from heaven and the 
stars magnificent and prodigious things, they make us 
accept as divine that which is derived from natural sources. 
We have said that the Saturnians are said to be melancholy, 
cold, and sapless. If we investigate the opinion of 
physicians, Galen attributes to the melancholy, cold, and 
sapless a hard and frail body, rough hair, a humid or livid 
complexion ; and to the melancholy generally black and 
bristly hair, bushy and meeting eyebrows, thick lips, and 
flattened nose. Others give them irregular teeth and broad 
chests. All that does not come from the stars, but from the 
temperament, as the physicians say.” 

Of all the writers of the seventeenth century Dalla Porta 
is the most famous; he has, too, become for many people 
the only representative of ancient physiognomy. Under 
his portrait, which adorns many editions of his work, we 
read these verses— 

‘* Blandus honos virtusque simul delubra tenebant, 
Sed binis templis unica Porta fuit, 


Tu quoque virtutem conjunctam nactus honori, 
Amborum digne orta vocandus eris.” 


Seventeenth century distiches, if ever any were ! 

Not only did Dalla Porta first openly oppose judicial 
astrology, but he opened up a new era for the study of 
physiognomy. He could only make use of the scientific 
materials of his time, but he employed them with the 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. 9 


wise discernment of a positive philosopher, and his psy- 
chology is sound. He discussed the methods which 
may guide us in the study of the human physiognomy, 
and he investigated how, by the temperament of the whole 
body, its characteristics might be conjectured. Thus he 
merited his fame and justified the enthusiasm with which 
all learned Europe received his work, written first in Latin, 
then translated by him into Italian, and by others into 
French and Spanish. 

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this illus- 
trious Neapolitan was the high-priest of physiognomy. All 
those who wrote subsequently pillaged him, either quoting or 
not quoting him, and drew plentifully from his Encyclopedia, 
where he had gathered all that the ancients had been able 
to say on the subject of the human physiognomy, and all 
that an observer could add to them. 

Niquetius, whom we have already cited, was a very 
erudite writer and a good observer for his time. He also 
distinguished astrological from natural chiromancy. He 
also, like De la Chambre, felt a vague need to reject 
antique superstitions, and was a precurser of the experi- 
mental school which was to transform the world. The 
introduction to his natural chiromancy deserves recalling ; 
he speaks in it of the importance of the hand— 


** Quid est enim manus? Zoroastro, ddmirabilis naturze miraculum, 
Plutarcho, causa hamanz sapientiz; Lactantio, rationis et sapientiz 
magistra, aliis, mundi artifex, amicitize sedes, humanz vitz presidium, 
corporis propugnaculum, capitis defensatrix, rationis satelles, interpres 
animi, conciliatrix divinz gratis, nervus orationis, officina sanctitatis, 
Isidoro dicitur manus, quasi munus, nimirum totius corporis munus ; 
ministrat enim cibum ori, ceterisque membris omnibus opitulatur. 
Denique fidei symbolum est, unde porrigere dextram est fidem 
promittere, quod colligitur ex Virgilio Aineid. 

‘« Pars mihi pacis erit dextram tetigisse tyrannis.” 
Et Lib 3. 
** Ipse pater dextram Anchisis haud multa montus 
Dat juveni, atque animum preesenti pignore firmat.” 


10 PH VSIOGNOMY. 


When Niquetius gives us some sketches of the expres- 
sion of passion and of human characteristics, he paints 
very happily. Here is his description of an audacious 
Lah 

‘* Audacis viri figura : 

Os exertum, vultus horridus, aspera frons, supercilia arcuata, 
oblonga; nasus longior; dentes longi; breve collum; brachia 
longiora, que genua attingant; pectus latum ; humerielevati; oculi 
czesii, rubei, salientes ; torvus aspectus.” 


Towards the end of the seventeenth century, another 
Italian writer, Ghiradelli, published a large volume on 
physiognomy, whose title is very characteristic of this 
inflated and bombastic period. Here is its exact arrange- 
mient—— 

‘* Cephalogy 
Physiognomical. 
Divided into ten half scores. 

In which, in conformity with the documents of Aristotle, 
And of other natural philosophers, with brief 
discourse and careful observations, we 
examine the physiognomies 
Of one hundred human heads 
Which have been engraved in this 
Work. 

After which, by signs and conjectures, 
we demonstrate the different inclinations of men and women. 
By Cornelio Ghiradelli, Bolognese, 

The Ingenious Vespertin Academician. 

As many sonnets of divers excellent poets and academicians 
have been added, in which the physiognomies previously cited are 
gallantly described. 

And some additions to each discourse of the indefatigable 
Vespertin Academician. 

At Bologna, 

At the house of the Heirs of the Gospel, 

Dozzi & Company, 

1672.” 


The method employed by this ingenious and indefatig- 
able academician in studying the human physiognomy is 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. II 


indeed very curious. He shows us a hundred human faces, 
drawn after life—very ill, it is true—and finely framed in a 
border ornamented with irregular sculpturings. Each is 
accompanied by a Latin distich, by a sonnet, and some 
remarks by the author. I shall quote, as an example, the 
distichs and sonnets which refer to a good and bad counten- 
ance. I will spare the reader Ghiradelli’s prolix commentary. 

We have before us a beautiful round face, which, 
according to the verses, should belong to a fair man. 
Here is the distich— 


‘* Moribus ingenuis preeclaraque indole credas, 
Quem flavescenti videris esse coma.” 


And his lordship, Cesare Orrini, graciously offered to the 
author the following sonnet, which is read under the 
portrait— | 


_ **The fair locks with which nature has so splendidly adorned thy 
glorious brow, renders her other gifts so clear and so manifest that 
thought can figure its lively image. And thou must have no fear 
shouldst thou be calied upon to arm and fight, for a powerful and ever- 
present force is there to protect thee and to oppose itself to the 
influence of fatal stars. 

** Kings bear crowns of glittering gold, and the idolising, worshipping 
crowd bow before the perishable rays with which they shine 
resplendent. 

**But thou, under thy golden hair, thou possessest a more truly 
glorious gift, so great a treasure of virtue that thou shall rise above 
the sun and shalt attain to the heavens.” 


On page 17 our ingenious academician shows us a 
frightful snout, framed in the palm of a hand, as if between 
the hands of a barber about to shave it; and below this 
audacious distich, in the manner of a pillory label — 


‘* Hispida ceesaries pigrum notat, atque timentem 
Quemque mala videas calliditate frui.” 


Then comes the sonnet, which, this time, is the work of an 
Arcadian—that is to say, of the Marquis Errico Rossi, 
member of the Arcadian Academy of Bologna— 


12 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


‘** Remove thyself from here—remove thyself afar ; for to remain with 
thee is a misery for others ; thy mouth forms words contrary to thy 
thought ; thou art always ready to mingle lies with truth. 

** Never hast thou dared to face a danger; never hast thou taken 
thought for others; thou fleest like the buck or the swift goat; thou 
avoidest the passer-by from afar. 

‘* To every noble spirit, to every honest heart thou art as a brier, and 
as thorns, a coward, deceiver, idle and evil. 

**T cannot deny that if thy lips are lying, thy hair, stiff and bristly, 
is truthful and reveals thy vices.” 


Despite this academic trifling, Ghiradelli is a scholar 
and a sagacious observer; his book may be studied with 
interest by those who wish to know what the science of 
physiognomy was in Italy towards the end of the seventeenth 
century. He devoted to the nose two discourses which 
are really very curious. He says, among other things, 
“that the nose helps to manifest passion and contempt. 
Doctors have examined several proverbs upon the move- 
ments of the nose when a man manifests some passion. 
For example, when we want to make fun of and mock 
another we make a certain movement of the nose referred 
to in the proverb: Lum adunco naso suspendere. And 
when we wish to express contempt we make a sign with 
the nose, which means Hum mnaso rejicere. And when we 
see anything unpleasant done to another, we twitch back 
the nostrils. When we get into a passion, the nostrils are 
dilated and the tip of the nose red.” 

Grattarola is an author who wrote in Latin upon 
Physiognomy, and who, in the order of time, precedes 
Ghiradelli. I have not been able to consult his 
work, but several passages of his cited by the writers 
of the seventeenth century do not testify to great 
originality. 

Giovanni Ingegneri, bishop of Capo d’Istria, at the 
beginning of the same century, has left us a little treatise 
on JVatural Physiognomy. We there gives sign of scanty 
erudition, and nearly always contents himself with 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. 13 


presenting in aphorisms the solutions of cabalistic science. 
A few examples will suffice— 


** A beard on a woman is a sign of little honesty.” 

** Excessive size of the brow is a sign of idleness.” 

** The smallness of the forehead indicates a choleric man.” 

‘* Very red eyes are the sign of a bad nature, inclined to cruelty.” 
** Bright eyes are the sign of wantonness.” 

‘* Those who are flat-nosed are very wanton.” 

** Men with curved noses are magnanimous.” 


Scipione Chiaramonti of Cesena is one of the best physi- 
ognomists. He published his works only one year 
before Ingegneri.t Blondo, Finella, and some others 
belong to the same school. 

Plenty of authors, plenty of volumes, but little originality, 
and plenty of plagiarism! Who knows how often we might 
have been dragged through the same ruts if towards the 
middle of the last century Lavater had not appeared to 
inaugurate a new era for this order of studies. He is 
the true precursor of the positive science, and he serves 
as a link between the writers of the seventeenth century 
and of modern times. 

The physician, Ciro Spontoni, also devoted a little book 
of astrology to the study of the brow. (JZetoposcopy by the 
Measure of the Lines of the Brow. Venice, 1626.) Ina 
sketch of the history of physiognomy it is necessary 
also to mention chiromancy, which has lasted into our 
own day as a last vestige of the magic of the middle ages. 
When we glance at the books on chiromancy we are 
astonished at the serious way in which imagination has 
struggled to read our character, our intelligence, and our 
destiny in the capricious lines of the hand. I will cite 
the following works as the most important:— _ 

La science curieuse ou traiteé de la chiromancie, etc., 
enriched with a great number of figures for the facility of 


1 De conjectandis cujusque moribus et latentibus animé affectibus, 


14 . PHYSIOGNOMY. 


the reader. Paris, 1665, 1 vol., 212 pages. Adrian Sicler. 
Chiromance royale nouvelle enriche de figures, de moralttez et 
des observations de la cabale, etc. Gio-Battista Dalla Porta. 
Della Chirofisonomia. Two books translated from a Latin 
manuscript of Pompeo Sarnelli. Naples, 1677, 1 vol., 167 
pages. 

Lavater was neither a physician nor a naturalist; he 
was a citizen of Zurich, and a minister of the Gospel. 
Poet and painter, with a feminine nature and an ardent 
love for mankind, he carried into everything the glowing 
enthusiasm, the sudden convictions, the mobility of ideas 
which form the joy and the torment of all men endowed 
with excessive sensibility. It is sufficient to look at the 
beautiful portrait of himself which he has given us in 
his works to perceive at once, and with a glance, all his 
defects and his rare qualities. Expansive, open to every 
enthusiasm, mobile, but always keeping within the limits 
of goodness and honesty, he has commented on his 
portrait in a short autobiography which is a jewel of 
‘sincerity and gracefulness. Lavater is one of those few 
men who carry their temperament and nerves into every- 
thing, who say all things to all. As soon too as we have 
read a single page of his great work we know and love 
him. Both in face and character he much resembles 
Fénélon. It is said that one day Madame de Staél, walking 
with him and some common friends, suddenly stopped and 
cried, ‘‘ How our dear Lavater resembles Fénélon! These 
are his features, his air, his countenance. It is truly 
Fénélon, but Fénélon slightly Swiss (wz feu Suisse)” He 
was also a poet, and left several epic poems, among others 
one which deserves comparison with Klopstock’s J/esszah, 
some religious dramas, canticles, sermons, theological 
writings, and some Swiss songs, which were very popular. — 

Lavater became a physiognomist, not by reading the 
authors who had preceded him, but by drawing with his 
rapid pencil faces which pleased or displeased him, and by 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. 15 


preserving his drawings with care. By dint of drawing and 
collecting, he found himself in possession of a considerable 
number of observations which, united almost without order 
and with no scholastic rule, crystallised as though spon- 
taneously into a great encyclopedia enriched with five 
or six hundred plates, and which he called one fine day, 
The Physiognomical Bible. 

The first edition appeared in folio in 1772; to-day very 
rare, it is still the best, because the figures were executed 
under the eyes of the author himself. After this first 
German edition there were others in French, in English, 
and in other languages. I possess that which was printed 
at the Hague from 1781 to 1803. It was begun by the 
author, but the fourth volume appeared after his death 
under the care of his son, a doctor of medicine. We 
recognise all the humanitarian and religious fervour of the 
author even in the title of this immortal work—Zssay on 
Physiognomy, destined to make man known and loved. 

The author is in fact inspired by love and by faith; 
transported by the liveliness of his feelings, he bursts every 
moment into hymns of admiration: now for the mouth 
which is so interesting a part of the face; now for the God 
who has made man so beautiful; now for the woman who is 
the enchantment of life; in a word, for all that presents 
itself to his loving eyes. It is related that in a long illness, 
the consequence of a wound which he had received in the 
attack on Zurich by the French, weakness caused him to 
fall into hallucinations and religious ecstasies. He imagined 
himself to be the apostle St. John, and present at the 
mysteries of the Apocalypse. 

In Lavater there is no longer a trace of judicial astrology; 
nor is there servile imitation of the ancient writers, of whom 
besides he knew little. But the guesses of an individual 
man take the place of a scientific examination conducted 
by positive and rational methods. Feeling is substituted 
always and everywhere for science. Thence come the 


16 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


imperfections of this beautiful work, which remains a 
grandiose monument of human genius, but which does not 
supply a firm basis on which to found other columns and 
other edifices. Admiration for, and love of, men are not 
enough to replace scientific observation; and the genius of 
Lavater does not suffice to atone for his complete ignorance 
in anatomy and in natural history. 

Two anecdotes will serve better than anything else to 
show the weakness of his theory. 

One day a stranger presented himself to him. 

‘“M. Lavater,” said he, ‘‘I have just arrived. Look at 
me well, for I have taken the journey from Paris to Zurich 
to see you, and to submit my countenance to your examina- 
tion. Guess who I am!” 

“T have already looked at you attentively. You have 
many characteristic features. To begin, you write... . 
You probably devote yourself professionally to literary 
work. . . . Yes, certainly, you are a man of letters.” 

‘‘True, but of what sort?” 

‘I do not know. . . . Yet it appears to me that you are 
a philosopher . . . that you know how to seize the 
ridiculous side of things . . . that you have courage... 
originality... much wit. You might very well be the 
author of the Zadbleau de Paris, which I have just finished 
reading.” 

It was in fact Mercier. 

When the mask of Mirabeau was sent to Lavater he 
guessed the great revolutionist. ‘‘One recognises at once,” 
he said, “the man of terrible energy, unconquerable in his 
audacity, inexhaustible in his resources, resolute, haughty,” 
etc, 

But here is the reverse of the medal :— 

One day his friend Zimmermann sent to him a very 
accentuated profile, with a letter written so as to greatly 
pique his curiosity. Lavater, who was wanting and 
expecting a portrait of Herder, imagined that this profile 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. 17 


was that of the great German philosopher, and went into 
ccstasies over the intellectual and poetical qualities of the 
man to whom it belonged. 

This man was, on the contrary, an assassin executed at 
Hanover. That which happened to Lavater will always 
happen to those who take physiognomy for an exact 
science, and who confound the expression with the 
anatomy of features, as he always did without himself being 
aware of it. Yet the illustrious pastor of Zurich marks a 
new epoch in our studies, and his work will always be an 
inexhaustible mine of information for the artist and 
the psychologist. We may say of him as he said of 
Raphael— ; 


** When I wish to intoxicate myself with admiration for the greatness 
of the works of God, I have only to present to myself in imagination 
the face of Raphael. He will always be for me an apostolic man; I 
mean that he is relatively to other painters what the apostles were 
relatively to other men.” 


Lavater was the apostle of scientific physiognomy, and 
although Lichtenberg wrote against him the celebrated 
satire of the Physiognomy of tails, he will always remain 
one of the most sympathetic figures, the most beloved, 
the most brilliant, in the history of physiological sciences. 

Lebrun, the celebrated painter of Louis XIV., wrote on 
physiognomy,! but in an academical manner. ‘The types 
of the principal emotions which he has left us are 
mannered: they are caricatures and not studies after life, as 
we shall have several occasions to prove during the course 
of this book. 

_ Among the artists who have studied the physiognomy 
is also the Italian, De Rubeis, a gentleman of Udina, 


1 Lebrun, Conferences sur Texprsesion des différents caracteres des 
passions. Paris, 1667, in 4to. These lectures were reprinted in the 
edition of Lavater published by Moreau, 1820. See also by the same 
author, Z.xpresstons des passions de [dme, in folio, Published by A. 


Suntach. 
2 


18 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


who published at Paris (1809) a book on portraits and 
on the best way of seizing faces! He was a pene- 
trating observer, and should be studied more than he is 
to-day. 

The real science begins with Camper. This great 
anatomist gave his name to the famous facial angle 
which, to our own time, has served as a criterion and a 
measure to determine the rank of the human face, and 
of the snout of animals in the morphological series. 
Topinard? and myself have published some critical studies 
on the value of this criterion; but the facial angle of 
Camper will always be considered one of the most 
ingenious discoveries which have been made in this order 
of research. Camper in his work? began to study the 
human countenance in different races, and traced the 
broad lines of an evolution of forms, while criticising with 
very close reasoning the brilliant superficiality of Buffon. 
In the third chapter of the second of the works quoted 
in the note he gives physical observations on the difference 
of the features of the face, considered in profile, as the 
heads of apes, of ourang-outangs, of negroes and other 
peoples, tracing up to the antique heads. “You will be 
astonished,” he says, ‘‘to find among my first plates two 
heads of apes, then one of a negro, and then one of a 
camel.” He opposes the opinion of some learned men 
who had admitted that negroes might be the offspring 
of the union of white women with apes. He says this 


1 G. Battista de Rubeis, De’retratti ossta trattalo per cogliere le 
fisonomie. Paris, 1809. Printed in Italian and in French. 

2 Topinard, Etude sur Pierre Camper et sur langle facial dit de 
Camper, Revue d’anthropologie, t. ii, Paris, 1871.—Des Diverses 
especes de prognathisme, tbid. t. i. and t. iv.—Mantegazza, Dez 
carattert gerarchict del cranioumano. Archivio per l’antrop. e l’Etnol. 
Florence, 1876, t. ii. p. 547. 

3 Camper, Déscours sur le moyen de répwesenter les diverses passions, 
etc.—Diéssertation physique sur les différences réelles que présentent les 
raits du visage. Utrecht, 1791. CEuvres posthumes, 


s 
ee, 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. 19 


is not the place to demonstrate the absurdity of the 
assertion: but, however, he compares apes, negroes, and 
antique statues. This comparison appeared to him very 
bold: he made it, however, and theological prejudice 
did not prevent him from tracing the first lines of the 
evolution of human forms. 

Charles Bell, a distinguished physiologist, published in 
1806 the first edition of his work! on the anatomy and 
philosophy of expression, an epoch-making work in the 
history of expression. Lemoine? was right when he said 
“Charles Bell’s book should be studied by every one who 
essays to make the face of man speak, by philosophers as 
well as by artists.” 

_ The German, Engel, published towards the end of last 
century a good book (Letters on Expression), which has 
been translated into Italian by Rasori, in which the diverse 
movements of the face and of the body are studied with 
care and with interest. 

- In 1839 Dr. Burgess? studied the causes of the blushing 
which is produced under the influence of different emo- 
tions; in 1862 Duchenne published two editions of his 
treatise on the mechanism of the countenance‘; but the 
importance of his observations and of his theories seem 
to me to have been somewhat exaggerated by Darwin.° 
In my Physiology of Pain I have tried to reduce the 
ardour of physiologists to a more judicious moderation. 

A great French anatomist, Gratiolet, gave at the Sor- 
bonne a public course on expression, which was published 


1 Charles Bell, Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression, 1806. 
2 Albert Lemoine, De la Physionomie et de la parole. Paris, 
1865, p. IOI. 
8 Burgess, Zhe Physiology or Mechanism of Blushing, 1839. 

4 Duchenne, Mécanisme de la physiognomie humaine ou analyse 
électro-physiologique de Vexpression des passions. Paris, 1876. 

5 Darwin, Zhe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. 
London, 1872, p. 5. 


20 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


in 1865, after the death of the author! He there thus 
summarises the conception which he had formed of 
expression— . 


**Tt results from all the facts which I have recalled, that the senses, 
the imagination and thought itself, elevated, abstract as they are 
- Supposed to be, cannot be exercised without awakening a correlative 
feeling, and that this feeling translates itself immediately, sympathetic- 
ally, symbolically, or metaphysically in all the spheres of the exterior 
organs, which tell all, according to their own mode of action, as if each 
had been directly affected.” 


The germ of a great truth lurks in this theory, but it is 
almost lost behind a veil woven of metaphysical nebu- 
losities. I hope that the reader will find more light in my 
chapter on the alphabet of expression. 

Piderit published, in 1859, an essay on expression, and 
in 1867, a scientific treatise on expression and on physiog- 
nomy.? Bain, Herbert Spencer, and other psychologists of 
the positive school have collected some valuable observa- 
tions on some of the expressions of the human countenance. 

But the honour was reserved for Darwin of studying 
expression by a really new method, and to open up a large 
field for purposes of comparison by seeking for the first 
lineaments of expression in the animals which most nearly 
resemble us. 

The great anatomists and physiologists who preceded 
him had only touched one side of the problem ; they had 
only concerned themselves with expression in its relation to 
art and the esthetic. He, on the contrary, with his wide 
and comprehensive mind, traced the general laws which 
govern expression in the whole animal kingdom. His book 
is one of the most splendid monuments erected by his 
genius ; and one may say, without exaggeration, that expres- 
sion, in so far as it is a special branch of comparative 


1 Gratiolet, De la physiognomie et des mouvements d expression, 1865. 
* Piderit, Wéssenschafiliches System der Mimik und Physiog- 
nomontk, 1867. 


AIISTORICAL SKETCH. ‘QI 


biology, asserted itself as a new science in the work 
published only in 1872, to which we shall have to recur 
more than once. 

Darwin studied the expression of the principal emotions 
in animals, in children, in adults. He put comprehensive 
questions to travellers, to missionaries, to all his corres- 
pondents in various parts of the world. Thus he amassed 
an extraordinary quantity of new facts; then he examined 
them as with a magnifying glass, submitting them to the 
evolutionist theory, that he might attempt to discern their 
mutual relation—the relation of cause to effect. We may 
differ in opinion from him upon some particular points, 
we may reject some of his explanations as too rash, but we 
must always admire the width of the horizon which was 
opened to us by the publication of his book. 

Scarcely more than two centuries elapsed between the 
work of Dalla Porta and that of Darwin, and yet what a 
gulf between the two methods! We seem to be reading 
books written in two different languages! On one side, 
divination, cabalism, some poor thoughts floating in an 
ocean of hazardous statements—fortuitous coincidences, 
On the other, few statements, many doubts; but what 
certainty of method, how open the look into the future ! 
There we have a fantastical world, where we can seize 
nothing because all is clouded and phantom-like; here we 
step on the solid earth of nature, and we enter the true 
path of science. We shall perhaps have to move onwards 
during the ages; but we shall never have to return beyond 
this point and strike a new path. 

Still the new physiognomy could not satisfy the crowd 
which had been so long gorged with amusing fooleries and 
graceful enigmas. Even in this century books have con- 
tinued to be published, which, with every appearance of 
seriousness, while claiming to be scientific works, preserve a 
strong odour of judicial astrology, or, at least, of sentimental 
physiognomy. 


22 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


I will cite as a model of the kind the Z7raité complet 
de physiognomonie, by Lepelletier de la Sarthe, where vain 
pomp of form vies with emptiness of content. And the 
author was a doctor. : 

It is almost the same thing with the two manuals which 
the celebrated ELxcyclopédie Roret has devoted to the study 
of the physiognomy—the Vouveau Manuel du Phystognomuisie 
et du phrénologiste, Paris, 1838, and the Physiognomiste des 
Dames, Paris 1843. The first of these volumes begins with 
a lie, for it is given as a posthumous work of Lavater and 
Professor Chaussier; the second is offered more modestly as 
written by an amateur. . 

Thoré published at Brussels, in 1837, a little Dictionary 
of Phrenology and Physiognomy, the erudition of which 
is drawn at hazard pretty well universally, now from old, 
now from modern times; but on the whole it is not a 
contemptible work, and good articles are found in it. ? 

We must distinguish from these compilations some 
Italian works. Povi Polli, whom we lost recently, had 
published a thesis, entitled Lssay on phystognomy and 
pathognomy (Milan, 1837, with six plates). This book, 
it is true, is completely forgotten to-day and unknown 
beyond the Alps; but it does not merit this oblivion. It 
abounds with excellent observations, especially in the 
part devoted to the physiognomy of the sick, and it is 
written with juvenile ardour. 

Filippo Cardona, in his volume, Dela /isonomia (Ancone, 
1863), commits the fault of writing in a solemn style, which 
smells mouldy and rancid a mile off, and which is especially 
out of place in a scientific book. This book has also the 
fault of being badly constructed, without order and un- 
scientifically ; but it is full of wholesome erudition, and 
here and there sparkles with wit and humour. 

Mastriani has treated more or less directly of physiog- 
nomy in two works, /Votomia Morale (Naples, 1871, 2nd 
edition) and L’xomo dinansi alla Corte a’ Assise. 


HISTORICAL SKETCH. an 


In this historical sketch I by no means claim to have 
cited all the authors who have written on physiognomy, 
but only to have sketched in broad lines the evolution of 
this science which, after wandering in the heavens and on 
the earth, has to-day recently returned to its point of 
departure—that is to say, to the pure sources of nature. 

To-day we must clearly distinguish the expressive 
movements of the muscles from features, the anatomy 
and forms. We have thus on one side a study of the 
human countenance, which is associated with anatomy, 
with anthropology, and, for its application, with all the 
plastic sciences ; and, on the other side, a study of expres- 
sion, and of expression in relation to psychology, to 
comparative ethnology, and the applications of which 
interest in turn painter, sculptor, and actor. 

My book proposes modestly to restore to anthropology 
and to psychology that which belongs to either by right, 
and to make known the positive documents which we 
possess to-day on the human countenance and on expres- 
sion. I shall esteem myself happy if I am able to enrich 
by my observations the treasury of facts secured to science. 


CHAPTER II. 
THE HUMAN FACE. 


Soon after birth, when our eyes have already the power 
of sight, but do not yet perceive, the first object which 
presents itself to the yet virgin pupil is a human face. 
When in our last hour our gaze wanders in the supreme 
anguish of the death agony, our eyes most greedily seek 
a friendly face on which to rest ere they are closed 
for ever. The human face, on which can be painted 
an immense love or an eternal hatred, a sudden sympathy, 
or an invincible repugnance, is for us the most interesting 
thing in the universe. All the libraries in the world would 
not suffice to hold the thoughts and the feelings which the 
human face has awakened in man since this poor intelligent 
biped has trodden the soil of our planet. Religion has 
made it a temple of prejudices and of adoration; there justice 
has sought the trace of crimes; thence love has gathered 
its sweetest pleasures ; finally, science has found there the 
origin of races, the expression of diseases and of passions, 
and has there measured the energy of thought. The dic- 
tionaries of our languages have gathered together all the 
fruits of our aspirations, our studies, and our researches, 
superficial or profound. Art has represented it in all its 
infinite variety and mobility of expression; the first artist, 
who with flint style sought to trace some lines on the 
bone of a reindeer or a stag’s horn, produced with a 
circle and three or four points a coarse sketch of a human 
face. 

This universal cult of the human face is fully justified. 


THE HUMAN FACE. 2c 


In it we find assembled, in a small space, all the organs of 
the five senses, nerves sufficiently delicate, muscles suffi- 
ciently mobile to form one of the most expressive pictures 
of human nature. Without words our face expresses 
joy and grief, love and hatred, contempt and adoration, 
cruelty and compassion, delirium and poetry, hope and 
fear, voluptuousness and bashfulness, every desire and 
every fear, all the multiform life which issues each instant 
from the supreme organ—the brain. 

Many centuries before science had collected the materials 
of our observations, the necessities of social life had taught 
us to observe the human face, to read there the thoughts of 
the mind and the feelings of the heart. Thence was 
born an empirical art without rules and without method, 
which was transmitted from father to son, the inheritance 
of a rough experience. 

Some anecdotes, collected by Lavater, may give an idea 
of this physiognomical art, which in different degrees is 
possessed by all men born under the sun. 

The father of a young virtuous man, who was about to 
undertake a distant journey, said to him as he bade fare- 
well: “‘ All that I ask of you, my son, is to bring me back 
the same face.” 

** At what do you value my face?” a stranger asked of a 
physiognomist. The latter naturally replied that it was not 
an easy thing to value.—‘‘It is worth 1500 crowns,” replied 
the other; “ for this sum has just been lent me on my face 
by one who did not know me.” 

A friend of the Count T , who lived at W ; 
one day entered his house with a face which he sought 
to make gay and serene. After having finished the 
business which had brought him he wished to retire.—‘ ] 
shall not let you go out,” said the count.—“ That is a 
strange idea,” replied the friend; ‘‘it is very necessary that 
I should go.”—-*‘ You will not leave my room,” replied the 
count, locking the door.—“ In Heaven’s name, why do you 








26 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


act thus? ”—‘‘ Because I read in your face that you are 
meditating a crime.”—‘‘ Who? I? Howcan you believe 
me capable ?”—“ You are meditating an assassination, or I 
understand nothing.”—-The other grew pale, and confessed 
that the count had guessed rightly. He surrendered to 
the latter a pistol which he was keeping hidden, and told 
him a sad story. The count was generous enough to draw 
his friend from the situation which was about to lead him 
into crime. 

However, all that the world generally knows of the 
human face is but a confused mass of vague notions for 
which language could with difficulty find expression. 

Try to describe to some one the anatomical or expressive 
features of a face which you know well; you will see 
how difficult is the task. And yet to have seen a man 
enables us to distinguish him from the millions of other 
men who inhabit the globe. This is because to see 
and to render an account of what one has seen are 
two very different things. In looking at a face we note 
rapidly, by a sort of inner shorthand, the most expressive 
and the most characteristic features. We keep this short- 
hand portrait in our minds, and thanks to it we distinguish 
each other, and it suffices us for the ordinary purposes of 
life. Sometimes we only remark a single feature, the most 
salient, and from this single feature we derive a name, 
The whites give the name of black to all the people of 
Africa and Melanesia because a complexion so different 
from their own immediately strikes their attention. In 
the same manner we speak of a one-eyed man, a long-nosed 
man, a thick-lipped man ; we speak of stupid, of libidinous, 
of beautiful, or ugly faces, although in addition to these 
characters faces present many others which complete their 
individuality. . 

All parts of the face are not equally important in 
distinguishing men one from another. De Rubeis has 
demonstrated this in a few words with complete satisfaction 


THE HUMAN FACE. 27 


in his Zreatise on the Reproduction of the Face, which we 
have already quoted in our first chapter. 

There are two distinctive characters of the face—the one 
essential, the second accessory. The following hypotheses 
will make clear what constitute the first. 

“You have a friend whom you see very often, who is 
a frequenter of your house. Let us suppose that he has 
concealed part of his face with a mask, so that the lower lip, 
the forehead, and half of the cheeks are hidden. The 
rest—that is to say, the eyes, the nose, and the upper lip— 
remains uncovered. Although the greater part of the face is 
thus hidden, the face is at once recognised, because the 
distinctive characters are visible. 

**On the other hand let this friend remove his mask; 
he has his head arranged in the ordinary way, and he 
only puts before his face a little black mask, which reaches 
from the middle of the forehead to the middle of the nose, 
covering the space occupied by the eye orbits. Then 
his friends no longer recognise him, especially if he has 
changed the shape and colour of his ordinary clothes. 

“Thus the part of the face which reaches from the bone 
of the nose to the middle of the forehead, and which is 
situated between the two temples, is the essential distinctive 
character of the face, and the part which comprises the 
cheek bones and the bottom of the nose is the accessory 
distinctive character.” 

The mistake of ordinary observers is not only to take 
two or three characteristics as a shorthand portrait of all 
faces, but also to confuse the form or anatomy with a very 
different thing—movement or expression. This second 
capital error has slipped into every treatise on physiogno- 
mony. It is only quite recently that anatomy has been 
separated from expression, and that the two things have 
been studied apart. We shall faithfully respect this funda- 
mental distinction in this work. 

One man has little short-sighted eyes, a long and crooked 


28 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


nose, a big mouth awry. Another has large beautiful 
eyes, a Grecian nose, an admirable mouth. Still it may be 
that both laugh alike, and express love and hatred in the 
same manner. They differ in their anatomy; they resemble 
each other in their physiology or in expression. 

We do not wish to give here an anatomical or an 
esthetic treatise on the human face; we will only say so 
much as it is necessary to know before entering on the 
study of expression, which is the most important and the 
most original part of our work. Decomposing by analysis 
all the elements which we meet in a living human face, 
without submitting it to the analytical operation accom- 
plished with the scalpel, we can prepare the following 
list— 


ANATOMICAL AND EXPRESSIVE ELEMENTS OF THE HUMAN FACE. 
Szze of face and skull and their Nose. 


mutual proportions. Mouth. 
Length and width of face and Chin. 
their relativ: proportions. Ears. 
Sztuation of the different parts Teeth. 
of the face. flair and beard. 
General form. Spots. 
Colour. Wrinkles. 
forehead. Different or expressive move- 
Eyes, eyebrows, eyelids, and ments. 
eyelashes. 


Each of these elements is decomposed in its turn into 
secondary elements, as we shall see in the following chapters. 

From all these elements taken together we can make 
certain determinations as to the successive epochs or 
accidents of life. 


Sex. Race and paternity. 

Ave. Different sorts of beauty. 
fea'th or disease. Moral character. 

Diverse alterations, traumatic Position tn intellectual rank. 


or pathological, suffered in 
the course of life. 


LEE AOUMAN FACE. 20 


If by means of a more precise and scientific formula we 
desire to reduce the possible judgments on the human 
face to a small number, they can be given as five—the 
physiological verdict, the ethnological, the esthetic, the moral, 
and the <zzéellectua/l, The ethnological and _ eesthetic 
verdicts are founded almost exclusively on anatomical 
characters ; therefore we shall speak of them briefly in the 
fifth chapter of the first part. On the contrary, the 
physiological, moral, and intellectual depend on expression 
more than on anatomy ; therefore we speak of them in the 
second part. 

In theoretical works on the art of drawing, certain rules 
are found which teach approximately the relative average 
proportions of a human face which is beautiful, or at least 
regular. ‘The ancients drew these rules from Vitruvius, the 
moderns from Albert Direr. After Durer the works of 
classical antiquity were studied, and from them it was 
sought to deduce the esthetic laws of human morphology. 
Many artists, in preparing the canvas on which to paint 
a portrait, begin by tracing an oval, and inscribing in 
this a cross. ‘Then they divide the height into four parts, 
each of which is equal to the length of the nose; the width 
into five, each of which is the width of the eye. But 
Camper remarks with much justice that proportions vary 
infinitely between one individual and another, and that 
these little differences are precisely that which constitutes 
originality. 

As we are not here writing a book on art, but a book on 
anthropology and psychology, a few words on the general 
form of the face will be enough. One of the most important 
characters of a human face is the possession or non-posses- 
sion of prominent jaws, thick lips, and receding forehead. 
In the first case the face is said to be prognathous; it is 
the type met with in negroes, the Australians, and some 
Papuans. In the second case the face is orthognathous ; 
this is the face of all the higher races, Isidore Geoffroy 


30 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


Saint-Hilaire gave the name of eurygnathous to a third type 
where the cheek-bones are very prominent, and which is 
found in the Chinese, the Japanese, and in the different 
branches of the Mongolian and Turanian races. This 
classification relates rather to racial progression than to 
beauty, because it corresponds to a particular development 
of the brain and of the face. If only the middle part of 
the face is taken into consideration there are two principal 
forms: the one developed from behind forwards and rising 
in, the median line; the other developing transversely, in 
which the sides are prominent and the middle flattened. 
The first form is found among Europeans, the second 
among negroes, and still more among Mongols. 

There are long and there are short faces. ‘The first are 
more frequent among the Aryans and the Semites, the second 
among the Mongols. To our ideas the perfect face should 
form a beautiful oval. We shall enter more into details on 
the proportions of the face when we treat, in the following 
chapters, of the features considered separately. The colour 
of the skin is one of the most striking and general features 
which impress us in a human face, and thence we judge 
as to race, sex, age, and health. The colour of the skin 
arises from the pigment deposited in it, on the manner 
in which the blood is distributed, on certain characters 
of the epithelium, and of the deeper tissues which give its 
particular hue. 

Broca, in the Anthropological Instructions published by 
the Anthropological Society of Paris, attempted to reduce to 
a small number of elementary hues all the colorations of the 
skin which he made correspond to as many numbers. The 
same table serves for the hair. All those who have wished 
to make use of this table of colorations to define the colour 
of a human skin have experienced great difficulties. For 
my part I have tried to apply it in the study of the Lapps, 
and I have had to give it up completely. The principal 
reason is that the skin is much more transparent than the 


THE HUMAN FACE. 31 


paper on which Broca has spread his tints. ‘Two colora- 
tions cannot be compared, one of which arises entirely from 
reflection, and the other is in part transmitted and in part 
reflected. Add to that subjective errors, which in the case 
of colours are not slight. 

The table of the Anthropological Society of Paris is in 
appearance scientific and precise: in reality it is as inexact 
as the old division into white, red, yellow, and black, 
according to which the whites would belong to Europe, the 
red to America, the yellow to Asia, and the black to Africa. 
Such a method is to cut the Gordian knot, like Alexander, 
not to untie it. I believe that we arrive very near to the 
truth in admitting for the human skin three tints—white, 
black, and the colour of dried bean (fave secche). 

- White skin is met with among nearly all the Aryans and 
Semites, and among many Polynesians, who are neither 
Malays nor Papuans, and have probably a common origin. 
with ourselves. The negroes, the Papuans, the Australians, 
some tribes of India, and the Negritoes, have black skin. 
All other peoples of the earth are of a dried bean colour. 
If any one will take the trouble to gather beans of different 
sorts, and of different degrees of dryness, he will have all 
the tints of the so-called yellow and red races, who in fact 
present now the colour of raw clay, now of baked clay, now 
of café au dait, finally of all the varieties of chocolate. 

It may seem at first sight an empirical and rough method 
of procedure when we compare the colour of the human 
skin to that of a fruit or a food; but in fact, since we have 
to deal with subjective notions, a much more precise idea of 
a colour is conveyed by saying that it resembles that: of 
dried beans than by denoting it by the term, olive- 
coloured, earth-brown, or blackish-yellow. Observe also 
that under every word there is, as its etymology indicates, 
a comparison with objects. For the rest I should like to 
point out the evidence for my statement. Several travellers 
have spoken of the colour of the skin of the Negritoes, 


32 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


among others Professor Semper and Dr. Crawford. The 
former said they are deep copper brown, the latter that they 
are of the colour of over-burned coffee. Any one who is 
acquainted with coffee will have a much clearer idea in the 
second than in the first case. 

In the colouring of the human skin there is one thing 
which has not attracted sufficient attention from ethnologists 
hitherto. A single adjective, however precisely and happily 
chosen, cannot characterise this coloration exactly, because 
it results from the superposition of two colours, and most 
frequently from a sort of black or very dark brown dust 
deposited on a ground of dried bean. I have studied this 
aspect of the skin in the Tobas, the Mocovis, and the 
Matacos of South America; but, after all I have collected 
from the lips of travellers, I believe that we may add to 
these many peoples who vary between black and white 
without being one or the other, 


CHAPTER “AIT. 


THE FEATURES OF THE HUMAN FACE, 


THE FOREHEAD—THE EYES, EYEBROWS, AND EYELASHES—THE 
NOSE—THE MOUTH—THE CHIN—THE CHEEKS—THE EARS— 
THE .TEETH. 


HAvinG studied the human face in its general form and 
character, we have now to proceed to the analysis of its 
features, and examine them singly. 

If we consult ancient and modern authors we shall find 
plenty of physiognomical guesses, mingled with a very 
scanty observation of facts—a singular contrast, which well 
attests the poverty of science and the fertility of human 
invention. The most obscure physiognomist offers us a 
hundred formulz, each more uncertain than the other, for 
estimating character and intelligence from the features of 
the face ; while serious anthropologists have scarcely touched 
on the subject, occupied as they have been with the skull, 
which seemed to them to contain the most profound secrets 
of human nature. Between the physiognomists and the 
anthropologists are ranged the artists who have studied the 
- face from the zesthetic point of view, and have formulated 
their opinions according to personal taste or the tendency 
of the school to which they belonged. 

The Forehead.—After the eye the forehead is the most 
faithful interpreter of the intelligence. Many centuries 
before there was any study of morphological rank according 
to the evolutionist scale, the wide and lofty brow was 
universally considered beautiful, the low and receding 
brow, ugly. ‘This appreciation absolutely conformed to 

3 


34 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


nature, since the former was peculiar to the more intelli- 
gent races; while the latter characterised the inferior races, 
and an intelligence of a low order. In addition to its pro- 
portions relatively to the other. features of the face, the 
forehead gives us other secondary characters which vary 
with racial rank in the human family, with sex, or with 
different periods of life. The large development of the 
superciliary arch denotes an inferior rank in the order of 
races, while it is at the same time a distinctive mark of the 
male sex.? | 
A narrow and receding forehead, with enormous super- 
ciliary arches, unites the lowest racial characters, and is 
found especially among the inferior types of the Papuan 
races. In women (at least among the higher races) the 
superciliary arches are but slightly marked, or completely 
absent; the forehead is narrow, with very marked pro- 
tuberances, these being also characteristic of the heads of 
children. j 
Another very constant type of feminine forehead is one 
which rises vertically and inclines abruptly towards the 
crown, with a very accentuated angle. On the other hand, 
in the male head the curve is an unbroken line from 
forehead to occiput. The forehead of the child is above all 
distinguished by the large development of protuberances. 
The anthropologists have little beyond this to tell us of 
this feature ; the artists say still less.) Among them we will 
only quote the great Leonardo, who distinguished between 
three types of brow—the flat, the concave, and the convex 
—and ourown Cardona, who completed this distinction in 
his commentaries. He tells us that the first type, peculiar . 
to ruddy faces, was for the commentators of Aristotle and 
for Porta an indication of an excellent natural disposition, 
and that the second is not a great honour to its possessor, 
1 Mantegazza, Det caratteri sessualt del cranio umano. Archi io 


per l’Antrop., vol. ii. p. 11.—Studiz antropologict sulla Nuova Guinea. 
Archivio per l’Antrop., vol. vii. p. 137. 


THE FEATURES. 35 


more especially when little developed in height and towards 
the crown. The third, when neither brazen nor insinuating, 
testifies to a harmony of faculties, and frequently to musical 
ability.} 

The lucubrations of the physiognomists on the value of 
different types of brow present a contrast by their abundance. 
Here is an example of them— 

“Those with large brows are cowardly and timid, like 
oxen who have also large brows. Those with small fore- 
heads are very ignorant, by their resemblance to pigs. But 
by small I mean narrow, for the pigs to which Aristotle 
alludes in his Phystognomy have very narrow foreheads. 

“A brow developed in length indicates good sense and 
plenty of faculty for the sciences. 

“The square forehead, of medium proportions relatively 
to the face, denotes a magnanimous man by its resemblance 
to the brow of the lion. 

“Those with rounded foreheads are passionate, and it is 
a sign that they are inflated with presumption. 

“Those with rounded and lofty foreheads are stupid, 
because they resemble the ass. 

“The forehead which is not flat betokens the sagacious 
man, because he resembles the dog. 

“The smooth forehead denotes a quarrelsome man,’ 
said Rasi. ‘I believe by analogy with the dog, who is 
-quarrelsome, and has no wrinkles in his forehead.’” 

And so on for a number of pages. The author reviews 
in turn foreheads which are straight, then neither smooth 
nor rugged, calm, dreamy, medium, calm and dreamy, lofty, 
low, austere, sad, joyful, etc., and for nearly each one he 
gives us a human and an animal face to demonstrate the 
truth of his parallels and his opinions.? 

Niquetius believed the forehead to be the door of the 

1 Filippo Cardona, Della Fisonomia, Ancona, 1863, p. 174. 

2 Gio. Battista Dalla Porta, Della Fisonomia dell? huomo. Padova, 
1627. 


36 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


soul and the seat of modesty, aximi janua, pudoris sedes, and 
with his accustomed erudition he quotes Cicero, De pelitione 
Consulatus ; 
and Martial: 

. “perfricuit frontem posuitque pudorem ,” 
and Isaiah : 

“ Scive entm quia durus es, et nervus tuus ferreus et frons 
tua aerea,;” 
and Ecclesiasticus : 

“ Anime trreverenti et infrunite ne tradas me,;” 
and Terence: 

“ Mitte jam isthee, exporrige frontem,;” 
and Plautus : 

“ Ego te porrectiore fronte volo mecum logui;” 
and finally Pliny : 

“ Est enim frons tristitia, hilarttatis, clementie e¢ severi- 
taits index: nullibt magis quam in oculis et fronte pudor 
conspicitur.” 1 

The quotations of the learned Jesuit show us once more 
that orators, poets, and prophets placed the principal seat 
of thought in the anterior lobes long before a cerebral 
physiology had even been thought of. 

Mgr. Giovanni Ingegneri, bishop of Capo d’Istria, 
proceeds to diagnoses of the subject of the forehead which 
are amusingly subtle. For example, a brow which is 
neither smooth nor rugged is a sign that a man loves 
justice. ? 

The Bolognese Ghiradelli devotes the Deca seconda of 
his work’ to the study of the brow, wich ts the most secret 
and noble part of the physiognomy. He is even still more 
prolific of quotations and cabalistic lucubrations than the 


1 R. P. Honorati Nicquetii, etc., Phystognomia humana, Lugduni, 
1648, p. 176. 

2 Fisonomia naturale di Monsignor Giovanni Ingegnert. Padova, 
1626, p. 19. 

® Cornelio Ghiradelli, Ce/alogia Fisnomica, Bologna, 1672, p. 78. 


THE FEATURES. 37 


Jesuit Niquetius. To give an idea of the pompous style, 
so resonant of this seventeenth century, with which he 
discourses of the forehead, I will cite a single period. 

‘Among all the parts of our body the forehead shows 
itself the most docile in revealing the inner affections of 
the soul. At the foot of the brow the noble flame of the 
eyes is constantly burning; by so much the more easily 
this oracle of the heart is inflamed by curiosity and external 
_ knowledge, by so much the more readily may be read 
there the resolutions decreed in the council of Nature.” 

Lavater might well say that his predecessors in the study 
of the forehead had but copied each other, and that they 
had fallen into vague contradictory arguments, into rigid 
conclusions destitute of sense. He affirms that he studied 
the forehead more than any part of the face, because he 
believed it to be the most important and most charac- 
teristic ; but he too attempted to compel nature to reply 
under the constraint of torture, and his laws are guesses 
which severe science repudiates. Judge if my opinion is 
too harsh. 

1. The forehead is elongated in proportion as the mind 
is destitute of energy and elasticity. 

2. In proportion as it is narrow, short, and squat the 
character is concentrated, firm, and solid. 

3. Rounded contours, with no angles, discover gentleness 
and flexibility of character. But this, on the contrary, will 
have firmness and rigidity as the contours of the forehead 
are rectilineal. 

4. Absolute perpendicularity, from the hair to the eye- 
brows, is a sign of complete lack of intelligence. 

5. A perpendicular form, which slopes away insensibly 
above, announces a reflective mind, profound and decisive 
thought. 

Let us stop here. The ancients, on looking at a 
forehead, could tell us all sorts of beautiful things. We no 
longer know anything, and in the first lines which we wrote 


¢ 


38 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


on this part of the face was collected well-nigh all the 
positive knowledge which we possess. It is probable that 
among the hosts of opinions formed by the old physiog- 
nomists, and especially by Lavater, who was a good observer, 
there lurks some amount of truth. Posterity will be able to 
discover it by an analytical work of which we are not 
capable to-day. But it would be labour lost to weary 
ourselves now with digging into the scoria of the past, when 
the rich veins of positive psychology are opening up before 
our delighted eyes. 

The Eye.—The eye is so important a part of the face 
that a complete monograph on this organ would comprise 
the half of all psychology and the science of expression. 
But in this first part we must only speak of the anatomical 
history of the eyes, and not of their expression. 

The most striking characters of the eye are its expression, 
form, position, colour, and the special arrangement of the 
eyebrows and eyelashes. According to the total effect of 
these characters we judge whether the eye is beautiful, 
ugly, eloquent, stupid, expressive, etc. 

The size of the eye, as we empirically appreciate it on 
a first glance and without measurements, does not only 
depend on the volume of the eyeball, but on the extent 
to which the opening of the lids allows a greater or less 
portion of it to be seen. 

The eye which is rather large without being prominent 
is to us the ideal of perfection; a small eye seems ugly 
to us. This verdict is rational, for the eye being one of 
the most expressive organs, there is in its power of expres- 
sion an element of quantity which is not without effect. 

Generally the Aryans, the Semites, and many negroes 
have large eyes; Mongols and many Malays have small 
eyes. 

The form of the eye depends partly on the greater or 
less convexity of the cornea, but still more on the shape 
of the orbit, on that of the eyelids, and on the extent to 


THE FEATURES. 39 


which these open. We have then to consider round eyes, 
prominent, almond-shaped, horizontal, or oblique eyes, 
either sloping up to the nose or to the temples. 

In the Aryan and Semitic races, and among the white 
Polynesians, the eyes are almond-shaped, with the outer 
extremity very pointed. This forms in our opinion one 
of the principal beauties of the Semitic women and of those 
who have a little Semitic blood in their veins, as the 
Spaniards of Andalusia. This form of eye is also much 
appreciated in the East, since it is the practice to simulate 
an elongation of the transverse opening of the eyelids by 
the use of sulphur of antimony. 

Eyes slanting downwards, from without inwards, form one 
of the characteristics of the Mongols and of some American 
races. This obliquity is extremely pronounced among the 
Esquimaux, Buriates, etc. Sometimes among us just the 
contrary prevails, and the outer angle of the eye is lower 
than the inner. When this character is accompanied by 
other esthetic elements it may constitute a rare and extra- 
ordinary beauty, as may be seen in the case of the Empress 
Eugenie. 

Eyes may be ugly if they are too near or too far apart. 
In the first case, especially, the expression may assume a 
bestial and very repulsive character. 

They may also be very unsightly if they are level with the 
head, as in some negroes, or too prominent, as in some 
short-sighted people. 

The excessive sunkenness of the eyes in their orbits may 
depend either on the very overhanging roofs of the latter, 
or on great emaciation. In either case they may give a 
ferocious or a sad character. 

The colour of the eyes varies greatly both among 
different races and among different individuals of the same 
race. We generally define it in a summary fashion by a 
single word, although in reality it is constituted by the various 
hues of the iris, and by the influence, greater or less, of that 


4o PHYSIOGNOMY. 


of the pupil, which is always black. The iris includes 
two concentric zones of different colour, and nearly always 
presents some striations of a third hue. Hence the diffi- 
culty of reducing all the colours of eyes to a small 
number of types. We call eyes which are deep chestnut, 
black; but such a thing as a really black iris does not 
exist anywhere. 

We may establish a sufficiently rough classification by 
distinguishing between grey, blue, green, and brown. 
The Anthropological Society of Paris have admitted for 
each of these fundamental colours five shades, which they 
have figured in a table, intercalated in the little volume 
of their Zustructions Anthropologiques. But the employment 
of this table is beset with enormous difficulties, since the 
terms of comparison chosen by Broca are inexact. In 
the table the colours are opaque—that is to say, the tints 
are reflected by the white paper on which they are spread. 
The colour of the eye, on the contrary, is the result at 
_once of reflected and of transmitted rays. Thus practice 
has shown me that it is better to designate the colour of 
the eye by the terms in use in ordinary language. To 
arrive approximately at a scientific classification we ought 
to have a series of artificial glass-eyes, like those adapted 
to the one-eyed to conceal their infirmity. 

While studying with my friend Sommier the colour of 
the eyes of the Lapps, I became convinced of these 
difficulties, and was obliged to give up using the table of 
the Anthropological Society. We were able to distinguish 
in the iris of the Lapps at least fourteen different and 
graduated shades. Here is the list— 


Men. Women. 
Dark ‘chestnut brown “.:4;2;200e meee D . sqdtieeen jaye 
Chestnut ‘brown i. aicaccaias asec By so cecaues exiesee 
Light.chestnuf. brown..c.. it saeseuunand LO cnscaexeuys sooe 4 
J Urgpoise -bluce.,.....1..:.0.s6.0e bus ween ie Mere ry 4 
Light Turquoise blue’... .ccsccosssecuseeec Z secccvccerencs _ 


A ZULC SLE Y 0s panned es Sosdad ss tsk sane aia 13 cccsenvcctecsen _ 


THE FEATURES. 41 


Men. Women. 

ISIC is syececetavcssesrsecenessere Stiga ch epiernace I 
MEY Se Aiy kno BMRA eicnsasetscolseceness rccet env erees 4 
MUMNDEIMED wap suuacsvovscevcvscesiescesssvse Tings voataytontes 5 
EET VA ceen scetsyswcacecvesscscceses Si adaverinreyine — 
EPICS OTCY 0. cacc su cccepescesscecsvens De cian enesne cass el 
ISITE OY, nics ca sha sawasse nose onoscese oD asiaecenvenesns _ 
BREE RIGIV ELEY cnccccssevnervcssoces aeeiincws w .2vsoseccessore _— 
EXERER cus eanse MremaasatuEiscavenes Rielsasaense GREE. veqssve one seve 

AGUA IS ca id ve ses Sirditresss 66 29 


Grey, green, or blue eyes are nearly always associated 
with the hair and complexion belonging to the blonde type; 
while brown or dark eyes generally go with the brunette 
type. Sometimes, however, blue eyes are found with black 
hair, or black eyes with fair hair. ‘These two contrasts are 
very pleasing, because rarity is an element which exercises 
great influence in our esthetic judgments. 

Sometimes it happens, but very rarely, that the two eyes 
may be of different colours. Every one knows the red 
colour of the eyes of the albinos; it arises because, from a 
deficiency of pigment, the iris presents the coloration of 
the blood vessels. 

The subjective element prevails in our estimation, 
whether favourable or unfavourable, of the colour of the 
eyes, and in this respect there are many national and 
individual tastes. I shall never forget the eloquence with 
which a very learned Norwegian philologist and ethnologist 
expressed to me his enthusiasm for light eyes (he meant 
grey, light, or sky blue), and his contempt for dark eyes. 
The former, he said, are expressive; they can translate the 
emotions: black eyes, on the contrary, express nothing; 
they are but Zzeces of coal/ I held my tongue and inwardly 
made some sad reflections upon the solidity and certainty 
of our zesthetic judgments. 

We associate with the colour of the eyes many esthetic, 
psychical, traditional, and other elements, according to 
which dark eyes seem to us more adapted to express 


42 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


passion and sensibility; blue or grey eyes to express 
gentleness and goodness. Generally, however, we prefer 
very accentuated shades; other things being equal, we find 
turquoise blue or very brown eyes more beautiful than grey 
eyes, greenish, or of uncoloured colour (colore incoloro), as 
one of my old professors of natural history expressed it. 

Eyes have a variable brilliancy which contributes much to 
modify their expression. ‘The eye of one who is laughing, 
speaking, or energetically thinking, is very bright; the 
eye of a stupid, weak, or sick man has little brilliancy ; 
that of the dying is sometimes almost extinct. ‘This 
brightness deserves attentive examination, for it is one 
of the most important and most obscure elements in 
the study of the eye. For the moment we must con- 
tent ourselves with saying that it depends at once on the 
structure of the cornea, on its varying convexity under 
the influence of the ocular muscles, on the humours 
secreted by the eye, and above all on the veil of tears 
which bathes its whole exterior surface. 

The eyebrows, the eyelids, the lashes, are only secondary 
elements ; but they serve to modify the physiognomy. 

The eyebrows may be thick, very bushy, or scanty, to the 
point of being scarcely visible. Generally we consider 
eyebrows which are moderately thick, well-arched, well- 
lined, and having hairs of uniform length, as beautiful. 
We prefer them more accentuated in the man, more 
delicate in the woman, because these two types represent 
sexual differences which we observe in nature. 

When they are too full, especially if they meet, they give 
to the face an expression of energy which may amount to 
harshness and ferocity. When, on the contrary, they are 
almost invisible they take much of the expression from 
the eye and constitute an element of ugliness. With age 
the central hairs of the eyebrows become long, and even 
eventually cover at times a part of the eye, forming thus a 
sort of bristling bush which gives to the face either a 


THE FEATURES. 43 


savage or a venerable aspect. Lavater attributed great 
importance to the eyebrows as a criterion of character. 

“ Often the eyebrows in themselves express the character, 
as is witnessed by the portraits of Tasso, Leo Battista 
Alberti, Boileau, Turenne, Le Feévre, Apelius, Oxenstiern, 
Clarke, Newton, etc. 

“Eyebrows gently arched accord with the modesty and 
simplicity of a young maiden. 

‘Placed horizontally and in a straight line they cor- 
respond with a virile and vigorous character. 

“When they are horizontal for a part of their length, 
and short for the other part, strength of mind is united 
with frank goodness. 


‘“*T have never seen either a profound thinker or a firm 
and judicious man with thin eyebrows situated very high 
and dividing the forehead into equal parts. Thin eyebrows 
are an infallible sign of apathy and flabbiness. 


“The nearer they approach the eyes the more serious, 
‘profound, and social is the character. This loses in 
strength, firmness, and boldness in proportion to the 
height of the eyebrows.” 

In spite of my profound scepticism towards all physi- 
ognomical statements which are based on anatomical 
characters and not on expression, I confess that I have 
always found the guesses of Layater relative to the eye- 
brows exact in the circle of my own experience. They are 
so mobile, and they are bound by so close and intimate a 
dependence with the eyes and with the intelligence, that 
their morphology, studied in a single race and cum 
rationable obsequio, might very probably furnish the elements 
of good psychological diagnoses. 

Buffon likewise wrote—“ After the eyes, the features 
which contribute most to mark the countenance are the 


44 PHYSIOGNOM VY. 


eyebrows. As they are of a different nature from the other 
parts, they are the more apparent for this contrast, and 
strike more than any other feature; the eyebrows form a 
shadow in the picture which brings its colours and forms 
into relief.” 

The eyelids may be more or less long, wide, fleshy, 
open, etc.; but one of their most important characters is 
furnished by the lashes which beset their mobile borders, 
The lashes may be short, irregular, or, on the contrary, 
long, regular, and finally bristly. We think long lashes, 
which throw a shadow on the cheeks, beautiful; these long 
lashes are one of the most charming attractions of the 
Andalusian women. 

The, Nose.—In recent times no one. has studied the nose 
better from a morphological point of view than Topinard. 

This feature, nearly immobile, is still very important as 
an ethnical and as an esthetic element of the face. One 
nose is enough to discover the race of its possessor, another 
to spoil the most beautiful face. Thus the artists were 
right in calling it Lonestamentum facie’, and Lavater perhaps 
was not wrong when he said that a beautiful nose is never 
associated with an ugly face. It is possible, he adds, to be 
ugly and yet to have beautiful eyes; but a regular nose 
necessarily exacts a happy harmony of the other features. 
Many beautiful eyes are seen for one perfectly beautiful 
nose. 

For the illustrious Swiss physiognomist a perfect nose 
must unite the following characters— 

(a.) Its length must be equal to that of the forehead. 

(6.) It should present a slight depression near its root. 

(c.) Seen in front, its arch should be wide and with its 
sides almost parallel; but this width should be a little more 
noticeable near the middle. 

(@.) The point of the nose must neither be sharp nor 
fleshy, the lower contour precisely outlined, neither too 
narrow nor too wide. 


THE FEATURES. 45 


(e.) The flanks of the nose must be distinctly seen from 
before, and the nostrils delicately shortened below. 

(7) In profile the lower part of the nose should only be 
one-third of its length. 

(g.) The nostrils should be more or less pointed in front 
and rounded behind; they must be lightly curved, and 
divided equally by the profile of the upper lip. 

(4.) The sides of the nose will form a sort of wall. 

(z.) Above it will almost join the orbital roof, and at the 
side of the eye it will be at least half an inch wide. 

Many of these characters are questionable. Our esthetic 
judgments on the nose are nearly always very correct, 
because they are connected with the most imperious laws of 
evolution and of organic morphology. 

We, belonging to the higher races, regard as ugly all noses 
which approach that of the ape, snub, flattened, or very 
small noses, with nostrils failing in parallelism, and the 
section of which represents the figure eight. In this 
respect we even sacrifice the laws of geometry to 
our atavistic prejudices; we should consider a woman 
beautiful who had an excessively large nose, rather than 
pardon a snub one. In Italy we call a large nose aristo- 
cratic (especially if it is aquiline), perhaps because the 
long-nosed conquerors, Greek or Latin, subjugated the 
autocthonous small-nosed population. 

Naturally we look upon all noses which violate the laws 
of symmetry, or the harmonious proportions of the other 
features, as ugly. A nose cannot, of course, be beautiful if 
it is too large or too small, or if it is awry. 

The development of the nose in different races is either 
antero-posterior or transverse, forming thus two extreme 
types, the aquiline and the flat nose. The long nose belongs 
generally to all the peoples of Europe, to the white 
Polynesians, and to the Americans of the North; the 
negroes and the Mongols have short noses. 

The nose may be long and wide; it may be so short and 


46 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


flattened, that a ruler might be so placed as to rest at once 
on both cheeks without touching the nose. This is the 
case with the Esquimaux. The aquiline nose may have 
one or two protuberances, and the small nose may have 
the tip turned up, which always gives to the whole face 
a capricious and impertinent expression. This is the ez 
vetroussé so frequently met in France, The Roumanians 
have a proverb—* A 7p-til/ed nose, one person in a house, 
and no more.” 

Carus distinguishes between five sorts of majestic noses: 
the zhin, the ong, the hooked, the wide, and the fleshy. 

Leonardo had formerly indicated more subtle distinctions. 

“The junction of the nose with the eyes may be either. 
concave or straight. . . . Noses are of three sorts: straight, 
concave, or convex. There are four varieties of straight 
noses: the long, the short, with the tip high, with the tip 
low. Concave noses are of three sorts, according to whether 
the concavity is found in the upper, the middle, or the lower 
part. Convex noses are also of three sorts, for the convexity 
may be at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom; the 
prominent parts between which the nose is situated may 
likewise be straight, concave, or convex. ‘To readily retain 
the recollection of a face we must first compare in many 
faces the mouth, eyes, nose, chin, throat, neck, and the 
shoulders, and make -comparisons. Noses are of ten 
species, according to whether they are straight, arched, 
hollowed, elevated above, or below rather than in the 
middle, aquiline, snub, round, or pointed. These distinc- 
tions only hold good for noses seen in profile. From the 
front, there are eleven forms of noses: they may be equal, 
thick in the middle, thick at the point and thin at the 
junction, they may have wide or narrow nostrils, high or 
low, with the apertures laid bare or hidden by the point.” 

Leonardo, however, was unable to distinguish with pre- 
cision between all the possible varieties of nose. 

In a scientific study it will always be necessary to consult 


THE FEATURES. 47 


the programme traced by Topinard, who, I believe, has not 
forgotten a single important morphological element—! 


Maximum height 
‘ Maximum width 


Maximum prominence | Antero-posterior index. 
Angle of inclination. 
Rectilinear. 
Broken or uneven. 
Ridge Direction} Convex (aquiline variety). 
Concave (snub variety). 


} Transverse index. 








Steep. 
Born panes 
Flat. 
( Distinct (pinched, trilobed), 
Lobe {feta 
Passing the nostrils. 
Approximate, 
Flanks fee. 
Elliptical. 
Form {Resa 
| Special. 
Base pele -. { Small. 
Principal axis { ace 
Rene Sensibly downwards. 
at r forwards. 
Plan inclined actuate 
3 externally. 


; Antero- posterior. 
Direction of Oblique. 


Principal axis | Transverse, 


With the aid of this analytical table I was able even to 
classify the nose of Thiébaut, the elder of the two Akkas of 
Miani, the tip of whose nose was lower than the two lobes, 
while the base was very wide.” 

One character omitted in the table is the angle which 
the root of the nose makes with the forehead. It is very 

1 Topinard, *‘ De la Morphologie du Nez,” Bulletin de la Société 
Anthrop, 2°. serie, vol. viii., 1873. 

2 Mantegazza e Zanetti, J due Akka del Miani, Archivio per 
lantrop., etc., tomo iv. p. 137. 


48 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


marked in the Australians and the Papuans: it is zero in 
the so-called Greek nose, a conventional rather than an 
actual form, which is found in all the statues of the 
ancient Greek sculptors. This angle is much less pro- 
nounced in Mongols and Arabs. 

The muscles which move the nose are almost atrophied 
inman. ‘Thus they give only a very feeble movement, and 
only on rare occasions, notably in asthma, when the 
muscles are called on, even the feeblest, to aid in respira- 
tion. Besides these pathological cases the flanks of the 
nose dilate and contract very visibly in passion and in 
pleasure. It seems that these movements are more marked 
in the inferior races, and among men of the higher races 
who are much addicted to voluptuousness. 

I have remarked that the tip of the nose is nearly always 
deflected towards the right, and I have proposed to explain 
the fact by attributing it to the custom of wiping the nose 
with the right hand. However, my theory has need of 
confirmation. 

The Mouth.—lIf the eye is the most expressive part of the 
face, the mouth is the most sympathetic. The yearnings of 
love and the passions of voluptuousness converge here as 
to their natural centre. In fact, as we shall see better in 
the second part, the eye is the centre of the expression of 
thought ; the mouth is the expressive centre of feeling and 
of sensuality. 

Tommaseo was then completely right when he wrote in 
his Moral Thoughts: “It was not without reason that the 
Latins called the whole face of man os. ‘The soul dwells 
in the mouth.” 

And Lavater devoted to the mouth a page re with 
delicate and sensuous exaltation— 

“The mouth is the interpreter and organ of te mind 
and of the heart. In repose, as in the infinite variety of 
its movements, it unites a world of characters. It is 
eloquent even in its silence. 


THE FEATURES. 49 


“This part of our body is so sacred to me that I scarcely 
dare to speak of it. What a subject of admiration ! 

**What a sublime marvel in the midst of so many other 
marvels of which my being consists! Not only does my 
mouth breathe the vital air, and fulfil the functions which 
are common to me with the animals, but it serves to form 
speech; it speaks, and will still speak, when it can never 
open again. 

** Readers, expect nothing of me on the subject of the 
most active and the most expressive of all my organs; this 
undertaking is above my strength. 

“Humanity! how art thou degraded! What will be my 
ecstasy in the eternal life when my eyes shall behold in the 
face of Jesus Christ the mouth of divinity—when I shall 
utter this cry of joy, ‘I too have received a mouth like that 
which I adore, and I dare to pronounce the name of Him 
who has given itto me! Life eternal, to think of thee is 
already happiness !’ 

“T conjure our painters and every artist whose mission it 
is to represent man—I conjure them with all my might to 
study the most precious of our organs in all its varieties, in 
all its proportions, and in all its harmonies.” 

Here is a sensuous mysticism which recalls to me the 
hysterical and religious ecstasies of Saint Theresa. Lavater 
had a very feminine nature, and was profoundly religious. 

The mouth has not only fascinated Tommaseo and 
Lavater, both of them visionaries in sentiment, although 
very different from each other; it equally fascinated 
Herder, the creator of the philosophy of history. Hear 
him— 

“Tt is from the mouth that the voice issues, interpreter 
of the heart and of the soul, expression of feeling, of friend- 
ship, and of the purest enthusiasm. The upper lip 
translates the inclinations, the appetites, the disquietude 
of love; pride and passion contract it, cunning attenuates 

4 


50 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


it; goodness of heart reflects it, debauchery enervates and 
debases it, love and the passions incarnate themselves there 
with an inexpressible charm.” 

Reader, without being a great man like those whom 
I have just cited, compare the two different emotions which 
two beautiful eyes or a beautiful mouth in a female face 
awaken in you. In the first case you may be struck with 
open-mouthed admiration, but in the second you cannot 
save yourself from loving ardently. The woman whose 
eyes have awakened our love inspires us with enthusiasm, 
exalts us, throws us into an intellectual ecstasy; but she 
whose mouth fascinates us twines us round, binds us, 
belongs to us already, at least in the irresponsible world of 
desires. The eye is the azure heaven to which none may 
attain; the mouth is the earth with its perfumes, its 
ardours, and the profound sensuality of its fruits. 

But let us leave poetry, and re-enter the severe laboratory 
of anatomy. 

Generally all the higher races have a moderately-sized 
mouth, with the lips rather thin and slightly curved. Even 
when we oppose Darwinism from the prejudice of the 
school, or from religious horror, we agree in considering 
ugly a mouth which recalls our cousins, the anthropoid 
apes. A mouth is ugly if it is too large or too far from 
the nose, when the upper lip is a sort of long curtain. 
Unless we are sensual as some monkeys, we think a mouth 
with too fleshy lips very ugly, these nearly always going 
with a prominent snout, or, to speak scientifically, with a 
prognathous face. ‘The extreme thickness of the lips which 
is noted in nearly all negroes is due to the hypertrophy of 
the adipose cellular tissue, and to the great development of 
orbicular muscle ; and it is true that this type nearly always 
coincides with great sensuality. 

Lavater wishes (and I believe rightly) that we should 
distinguish in a mouth— ! 

(a) The lips properly speaking, taken singly ; 


THE FEATURES. veers 


(4) Their line of junction when the mouth is closed ; 

(c) The centre of the upper lip ; 

(Z) The centre of the lower lip ; 

(e) The base of the line of the middle (Lavater uses the 
term base for the angle perceived when a mouth is seen in 
profile in a dimly-lighted place, and which throws a little 
shadow on the lower lip) ; 

(f) The angles in which this line ends. 

As to the general form, Lavater distinguishes three principal 
varieties— 

Mouths in which the upper lip projects over the lower. 
This is a distinctive sign of goodness of heart (?) Such 
may also be called sentimental mouths. 

Mouths in which the two lips advance equally. They are 
met with in honest and sincere people (?), and may be called 
loyal mouths. 

Mouths in which the lower lip projects below the upper, 
and which may be called zrritable mouths. 

To-day, more ignorant or more sceptical than Lavater, 
we content ourselves with saying that the excessive promi- 
nence of the upper lip is often accompanied with scrupulous- 
ness, and that on the contrary a marked prominence of the 
lower lip generally denotes great firmness of character or 
obstinacy. 

The Chin.—It has been repeated in many books that man 
alone has a chin, but perhaps it is only true of the skeleton. 
Still it is beyond doubt that the higher races have a great 
repugnance to receding and slightly accentuated chins. In 
reality this is a character of inferiority which is found in 
very low types of humanity. On the contrary, we think 
beautiful a rounded or oval chin, tolerably marked in the 
man, less striking in the woman. Sharply-pointed chins, 
on the contrary, give the idea of a certain hardness which 
cannot be associated with grace and kindliness. But these 
opinions, like all others of the same sort, have no serious 
basis. It does, however, appear to be evident that, other 


52 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


things equal, a very prominent chin has the same signifi- 
cance as the prominence of the lower lip, which we have 
noted above. It is an ethnical character of the English, 
who are a strong-willed people. ‘A long experience has 
shown me,” Lavater assures us, “that a prominent chin 
always denotes something positive, while the receding chin 
has always a negative signification.” Often the energy or 
feebleness of an individual is only manifested in his chin. 
But Lavater is not disposed to admit with the ancients 
that a sharp chin indicates astuteness. 

Many proverbs in different languages assign a certain 
character of kindliness to chins which have a dimple in the 
centre. Lavater declares that his experience has confirmed 
popular opinion, but I will not take the responsibility of 
maintaining or contradicting it. It is certain that a dimple 
thus placed beautifies still more a beautiful face. Therefore 
Pulci was right when in his M/organte Maggiore he thus sums 
up in a happy line all the good points of a beautiful chin— 


‘¢ A rounded chin, dimpled and well proportioned.” 


With two or three adjectives we may always define 
some form of chin, for it is one of the features least 
abounding in details. Lavater, for his part, only dis- 
tinguished between three principal varieties —to wit, 
receding chins (which I think peculiar to women), those 
the profile of which is on the same plane as that of the lower 
lip, and finally the sharp chins which project beyond the 
lower lip. 

Tommaseo has devoted to the chin one of his meta- 
physical reveries:—“A small chin indicates affection ; a long 
and full chin, coldness; long and retreating, perspicacity — 
and firmness; a dimple in the chin, more grace in the 
body than in the soul.” 

The Cheeks.—But slightly prominent in the whites and 
the negroes, the cheeks are very pronounced in the 
Mongol race, with whom they constitute one of the most 


THE FEATURES. 53 


characteristic features. We have already spoken of their 
prominence in the Esquimaux; but the Buriates do not 
differ at all in this respect, for recently my excellent 
friend Sommier wrote to me from Siberia that he had 
travelled with a Buriate ambassador, and that, looking at 
him in profile, he noticed that his cheek appeared above 
his nose. 

To us, people of the Aryan race, too prominent cheeks 
are always ugly. 

The Ears.—This is perhaps the least expressive feature 

of the face, on one side because it is still less mobile than 
the nose, and only very rarely mobile at all; on the other 
side because it is placed in a half-concealed position, where 
it must be sought before it can be admired or condemned. 
We must admit, moreover, that the ear, where it is perfect, 
completes the beauty of the face. 

In the esthetic judgments which we form on the ear, we 
are again Darwinians without knowing it. We think it ugly 
if too large, and especially when projecting from the head, 
when there is no lobe, or if the pinna is ape-like in its upper 
part. We think it beautiful when it is small, well turned, 
with well-drawn sinuosities, when it lies closely along the 
skull; and when it has a rounded and distinct lobe. 

Circular, irregular, and square ears are ugly; oval ears 
are beautiful. 

It appears that the lobe of the ear is wanting among 
several races of Northern Africa (Chaouia, Kabyles). 

The Teeth.—When the mouth is closed the teeth are not 
seen; but when it opens, the teeth are of foremost import- 
ance to the face, to which they add a capital element 
of admiration or horror, of sympathy or repugnance. 
The most beautiful teeth are not enough to make a man 
beautiful; but ugly teeth would spoil the beauty of the 
Venus of Milo herself. 

In our higher races we consider as beautiful teeth which 
are not too prominent, without gaps between them, not 


54 PHYSIOGNOMY. 









too thick, not too wide, not too long, white % 
tinted with blue. We think teeth ugly which are pI | 
placed awry, irregular, yellow, or far apart. t 


the upper jaw when the mouth opens. It is eA 
beauty to have bad teeth; it is like a spot on the su 
the hygiene of the teeth is at the same time the h 
beauty, good dentists merit a golden statue, or, 
a place of honour among the pa benefact 
humanity. Sad 

An ethnological study on the teeth has yet to be 
it will reveal distinctive characters of great importan: 


CHAPTER IV. 
THE FEATURES OF THE FACE (continued). 
THE HAIR AND THE BEARD—MOLES—WRINKLES. 


THE hair and the beard are secondary elements of the 
face; but in many cases they suffice to modify its 
esthetic value or to determine the race; they are alone 
always characteristic of the sex and indirectly of each of the 
ages of life. 

The Hair.—All men on the earth have heads covered 
with hair. An ethnologist has spoken of a bald tribe on 
the west coast of Australia, which seem to come from a 
mixture of Australians and Chinese; but this assertion has 
need of confirmation.1 Human hair differs in colour, 
length, thickness, and by the structure which causes it to 
_take a particular character, and gives it very diverse aspects, 
even when looked at with the naked eye and without 
recourse to the microscope. 

The palette which nature has used to colour our hair is 
very rich. The Anthropological Society of Paris has adopted 
the table of tints which serves them to determine the 
coloration of the skin ; but this scale has the same fault as 
that employed for the colour of the eye. 

From the white of linen we pass to light blonde, to golden 
blonde, to red, to chestnut, to brown, and to jet black. 

If all the peoples of the earth are massed together the 


1 Just as I am correcting my proofs my excellent friend, Professor 
Giglioli, has made me a present of a photograph which represents 
a completely glabrous aborigine of Central Queensland. 


56 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


most widely-spread colour of the hair is black ; it is enough 
to name the Mongols, the Malays, the Negroes, the 
American Indians, and the Europeans of the South. 

Blonde hair is common in the Germanic, Celtic, and 
Slave branches of the Aryan race, and in the Finnish 
branch of the Mongol race. Red is an exceptional colour 
which is not peculiar to any race, but which may, however, 
be considered as a variety of blonde; in fact it is never met 
with among black-haired races. 

Sommier and I, while studying the Lapps, have found 
chestnut hair to be most common among them. Dark black 
is very rare, blonde common enough. For the rest here is 
a more precise table. 


COLOURS OF HAIR. 


Chestnut, Fair. 


Deep. |Med’m.| Light. | Deep. | Med’m.| Light. 





One colour of the hair is nearly always associated, as we 
have already seen, with a certain hue of the eyes, and the 
union of the two characters constitutes one of the most 
immutable among the ethnical characters which enable 
us to judge of the purity of a race. For example, when 
among a people the eyes and hair are constantly black or 
constantly light, we say that the race is pure. A contrary 
conclusion is drawn when different hues are found which 
mingle in different ways. Nevertheless, this ethnological 
dogma can only be accepted with reservations, since for 
many peoples we want statistics worthy of faith, and also, 
because races very remote from each other may have the - 
same eyes and hair. 

For instance, will you classify the Japanese and the 


THE FEATURES. 57 


Sardinians together simply because they both have black 
eyes and black hair? The diverse distribution of the 
pigment is a good anatomical character on which to institute 
a system for the classification of men, but not to establish a 
taxonomical method. 

Topinard, profiting by the innumerable observations 
collected by Dr. Beddoe, has drawn up a table of human 
chromatology founded on the colour of the hair and eyes. 


Inter- 
eee mediateor | Brown. 


Chestnut. 


SPMTIPSE ce eel «| 785 A 17'°9 % 35% 
400 Walloons.. Bite 52°50 ars 252 
1125 Scotch Highlanders veel = 454 23 9) Beso 


90 Irish =a seat 453. 21°2 319 
654 Normans.. oe deol 630% 29°2 37°6 
1250 Viennese... —~Ss.| 328 258 41'4 
368 Bretons ... ee aest- 20°O 22°7 57°3 
518 Ligurians... ove pester 7-O 16°0 67°0 
163 Northern Jews ... sol 14°4 13°3 73°6 
Bas OGtner 4, «0 beet 33°5 13°7 731 
130 Maltese ... ee a 8°8 11°8 79°3 





From this table the following conclusions can be drawn— 

1. None of the series examined presents one colour only. 

2. The largest proportion of blondes is found among the 
Danes, then among the Walloons; the largest proportion of 
brown-haired among the Maltese, the Jews, and the Ligurians. 

3. The proportion of brown-haired is the same among 
the Jews of the North as those of the South. 

4. The Bretons are generally brown-haired. 

We believe that man, especially among the higher races 
(Aryan or Semitic), may, outside all ethnical influence, 
present hair of different colours. Of this we may be con- 
vinced without going beyond Italy; for in this country we 


1 Pfaff says that black hair predominates in the extreme zones, and 
that thus the Greenlanders and the Esquimaux have hair of the same 
colour as the negroes, But he has forgotten the Lapps, 


58 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


meet blonde, chestnut, and brown-haired Jews without 
having any right to explain the fact by mysterious reasons. © 

it is certain that in Europe, and especially in the large 
towns, blondes tend to diminish in number. This has 
been demonstrated in England to the great chagrin of the 
English. Charnock affirms that this change has asserted 
itself in Europe for two thousand years. Some seek to 
explain it by the diet followed in towns, where meat plays a 
larger part than in the country. Others, on the contrary, 
explain it by saying that the hygienic conditions, being less 
good in the large centres of population, tend to make the 
the blonde type, less resistant than the brown, disappear. 
In my opinion the problem is very complex, and the 
observations collected do not yet offer sufficient elements 
to enable us to arrive at a serious conclusion. 

Those who desire to study the problem will find in these 
data a point of departure for more profound and extensive 
investigations. 

Dr. G. Mayr has represented in two cartographical 
tables! the relative frequency of blonde hair, of white 
skin, and light eyes among the people of Bavaria. It 
results therefrom, for this region considered apart, that these 
types are more numerous in the northern than in the 
southern provinces. 

A smaller proportion of light-haired and light-eyed people 
are found in the towns than in the country. 


Provinces. 


Average. | Towns. | Country. 
Northern. | Southern. F 


Light Hair ...| 6867 % | 38°10 % 54% 
Light Eyes ...} 73°75 59°60 66 
White Skin ...} 92°94 70°73 85 





1 Die Bayerische Jugend nach der Farbe der Augen, der ie una 
der Haut, 1876. 


THE FEATURES. 59 


Mayr attributes the larger proportion of light hues found 
in the rural districts to the movement of emigration, which 
brings a greater mixture of races into the towns. In this 
mixture the dark races, though less numerous, give proof 
of a greater reproductive power. It seems to me that 
other influences also enter into play to determine these 
differences. ‘Thus, according to Professor Bertillon,! it has 
been ascertained in Engiand that blonde hair is decreasing 
and tending to dark hair. Now we know that the urban 
population in England is continually increasing, and that 
actually 50 per cent. of the population dwell in towns 
containing 2000 souls, and 38 per cent. in towns of more 
than 20,000, 

Of too individuals with fair hair, 38 have blue eyes, 39 
grey eyes, and 23 dark eyes. Of too individuals with 
brown hair, 22 have blue eyes, 34 grey eyes, and 44 dark 
eyes. 

Passing from Bavaria to a more northern state, to Saxony, 
we find on an average per thousand individuals the follow- 
ing figures ?— 


Eyes. Hair. Skin. 


Blue. | Grey. |Brown.| Fair. | Red. | Brown.] Black.| Fair. | Dark. 





The dark population then diminishes noticeably, but here, 
too, it is ascertained that it is maintained more numerously 
in the large centres. 

Of too individuals with fair hair, 44 have blue eyes, 
35 grey eyes, and 21 dark eyes; of 100 dark-haired 


1 International Congress of Demography held at Paris, * 

session of July 7. XN 
2D. Geissler, Die Farbe der Augen, der Haare und der Haut b 

den Schulkindern Sachsens. Xx 


60 PH YSIOGNOM Y. 


individuals, 46 have dark eyes, 29 grey eyes, and 25 blue 
eyes. These proportions differ very little from those 
observed in Bavaria. : 

The observations of F. Kordsi at Buda-Pesth on 10,000 
Hungarian students show the following distribution— 


Skin. Eyes. Hair. 


Dark. | Fair. | Black. |Brown.| Grey. | Blue. | Black. | Brown. a 


2,210| 7,790] 15 | 4,490] 2,594 | 2,901] 406 | 4,501 | 5,092 
4,505 4,907 





In France such exact investigations have not been made 
into this matter. Dr. Bernard! divided the departments of 
France into two groups, according to the prevalence of 
the Cimbric race (Nord, Jura, Bas-Rhin, Moselle, Haut- 
Rhin, Meurthe), or the Celts (Corréze, Haute-Loire, Avey- 
ron, Indre, Cantal, Ardéche, Dordogne), and found that of 
a hundred individuals the colours of eyes and hair fall. into 
the following divisions— 


Hair. Eyes. 


Fair. Chestnut. Light. Brown. 


Cimbric Departments 55 56 42 
22 78 


Celtic a 50 50 





Among the light eyes of the Celtic departments is com- 
prised a large proportion of grey eyes, which, according to 
Topinard, are one of the attributes of the Celtic race. 

The dark type which prevails in Italy is connected, on 
the one side, by the frequency of grey eyes in Piedmont, to 
the ethnical characters of the Celtic race; on the other side, 


1 Topinard, Manuel ad’ Anthrofologie. 


THE FEATURES. 61 


by the abundance of blue eyes in Venetia and in Lombardy, 
with the Germanic and Slave races. In the southern pro- 
vinces an important contingent of people of the light type 
has sensibly modified the ethnography. 

During the War of Secession, the American army, in 
which Europeans of every race were enrolled, furnished 
Dr. Beddoe with the following data on the colour of 
hair— 


Red or Fair. Chestnut. Black. 


English ... i AD in 75 
Sectch -.... " oe 502 


Irish 

Germans ... 
Scandinavians eis 
Spaniards and Portuguese 





The Jewish race has especially attracted the attention of 
ethnographers. It presents fair hair and dark hair, light 
eyes and dark eyes. In Germany the Israelite population 
is much darker than the rest of the nation, since it counts 
42 per cent. dark; but it comprises a remarkably fair frac- 
tion—that is to say, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair 
complexion; this fraction amounts to 11.2 per cent. of 
the whole. In Hungary, two-thirds of the Jews have a 
fair skin, 57 per cent. dark eyes, and 76 per cent. dark 
hair. 

The colour of the hair, irrespective of its abundance, 
length, or form, seems beautiful or ugly according to our 
individual taste, which suffers in turn the many influences of 
habit, education, race, prejudices, and divers associations 
of ideas and sentiment. 


1 Raseri, Materiali per l’etnologia italiana. Rome, 1879, p. 120. 
So far as Italy is concerned we refer to the appendix at the end of the 
volume; data are given there as to the colour of the eyes and of the 
hair in Italy. 


62 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


Still in these subtle sesthetic appreciations some funda- 
mental ideas survive which are common to all Europeans, or, 
to speak more truly, to all individuals of higher race. We 
like hair which has rare or extreme tints, or which, combining 
diverse colorations, gives us at once several sensations. 
This is why we like flaxen, tawny blonde (rare colours), jet 
black, and pronounced chestnut. On the contrary, inde- 
finite chestnut and uncertain brown are displeasing. Red 
hair, although rare, is disliked by nearly all because it is an 
almost monstrous type which is always associated with two 
unpleasant things—a disagreeably smelling perspiration and 
numerous freckles on the skin. 

Hair may be so long as to exceed the length of the body, 
or so short as to be but a few centimetres. The Aryans and 
Semites have very long hair; woolly hair is always very 
short. The Andalusians, the Spanish Americans, and the 
women of Paraguay are celebrated for the length of their 
hair. I knew a very beautiful lady at Salta whose hair 
was a decimetre longer than her body, though she was 
of middle height; and at Paraguay I have seen young 
girls who might have enveloped themselves in their hair 
and, without any other garment, have been completely 
clad. 

The length of the hair is independent of the thickness, or, 
as it is commonly said, of its quantity. Besides, the quantity 
is not easily appreciated at the first glance; for coarse hairs 
take up much more room than fine hairs, which may cause 
a mistake. Generally fair hair is much thicker than brown; 
chestnut between the two. 

After fifty hair falls more frequently, and physiological 
baldness begins. Sometimes, however, the hair is pre- 
served into extreme old age. The negroes, the Papuans, 
the Americans, become bald more rarely and later than the 
Europeans, who may be bald at thirty. Women, who have 
longer hair than men, also retain it longer, and scarcely 
ever become completely bald. 


THE FEATURES. 63 


A section of hair examined with the microscope does 
not always present the same form. Pruner-Bey and Roujon 
believed some years ago that it was possible to recognise 
all the human races by the various forms presented by 
transverse sections of the hair. But a more attentive 
examination has convinced all anthropologists that these 
two doctors were mistaken, and had taken as constant and 
natural facts what really resulted from the cutting of the 
section of the hair.} 

To-day we know that curly hair has an elliptical section, 
smooth hair a round section. ‘There are plenty of inter- 
mediate degrees between these two. We prefer, according 
to our tastes, some smooth hair, some curling hair; we 
always detest woolly hair, because we inevitably associate 
with it the idea of some characters of the inferior races. 

It was Bory de Saint-Vincent who divided all men into 
the /eiotrichous races—that is, the smooth-haired—and into 
ulotrichous races—that is to say, woolly-haired. More 
recently anthropologists have sub-divided woolly hair into 
ericomes {continuously inserted as in the negroes), and into 
- lophocomes (disconnectedly inserted as in the Hottentots, 
Negritoes, and the Boschimans); but Topinard has shown 
this distinction to be false. If the woolly tufts of the 
lophocome are divided with a comb, and if they are 
_ shaved, it is clearly seen that the roots of the hairs are 
evenly distributed over the whole surface of the skull, 
without forming the islets or bushes which are spoken of 
in books of ethnology and anthropology. ? 

The woolly hair of the negro is very fine; the roots are 
much smaller and less deep than in any other race. 

Pfaff has measured the average thickness of human 
hairs? — 


1 Bull. de la Société danthropologie. Paris, 1873, p. 3. 

2 Bullet. de la Société d anthropologie, 1878, p. 61. 

3 Pfaff, Das menschliche Haar, etc., Zweite vermehrte Auflage. 
Leipzig, 1869. 


64 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


Down of infant at the breast tis es 0.008—O.01 
9, Of the arm of a child ete oo. OUR 
», Of the upper lip of a woman soe | One 
Hair on the arm of a man ... ere wes 0,03 — 0.04 
Eyelash of aman ... wet ace << 
Hair on the tragus ... ee ae eee 0,045 
Hair of men... FE ie wi ie Oot 
Hair of women A gas cos oad eee 
Hair on the hand of a man eas ssn ee 
Hair on the nose of a man... a sie eee 
Hair on the pubis (of man)... ae ws O12 
ae 95 (Of woman). aa, soe, gay 
Eyebrows of man ... ise Aa cca aes 
Moustaches .., Dos ae ou wee 0.13 —O.14 
Beard ... fs a sek e- Re 
Hair of the arm-pits oe at on Ont 
Pig’s bristles ... ies i ove is, Gay 


Eleven years ago I wrote some glowing lines on the 
esthetic and poetry of hair, which I ask permission to 
reproduce here. Perhaps a theft which the master of a 
house makes on himself may be excused. 

“The eye is the window of the soul; in a lip may be 
concentrated enough beauty to kill a man or to save him; 
on the brow enough intelligence may shine to announce 
that man is a God begun; the chin may alone reveal 
infinite kindliness and gentleness; the body, by its undu- 
lations, may speak of strength and of love; but the hair, 
which does not speak, which does not lie, and to which 
sensitiveness has been denied, may multiply a hundred- 
fold every other beauty, and hide in its infinite labyrinths 
as much poetry as man is capable of experiencing and 
creating. | 

‘It bends to a thousand caprices of fancy, it obeys the 
boldest desires of the sense of touch, it gives an infinite 
variety to the zsthetic combinations of the features, and on 
the rigid lines of the skeleton continually brings about new 
beauties, so that it makes a hundred diverse pictures 
of one face, and of a single beauty a thousand beauties. It 


THE FEATURES. 65 


is living matter which yields with infinite docility to will, to 
taste, to art, and seems a palpitating wave of warmth, of 
passion, almost of thought, which flows gently and con- 
tinuously as water from a perennial source. 

“The head of man is the temple of his thought and of his 
passions ; it is there that his greatness and his virile beauty 
resides ; but there where the man ends and where heaven 
begins, the wind agitates a forest which is no longer flesh, 
and is not yet brute matter ; it is a frontier where our eyes 
never cease to seek sensations, and where a dawn of ever- 
changing and always beautiful forms moves and seems to live. 

‘In man is wanting that infinite subdivision and multi- 
plicity of the vegetable world, and nature has compensated 
him in his hair. To the sense of touch a thousand volup- 
tuous contacts are needful, and these nature has given with 
the hair.”} 

Different nations attribute different importance to 
the hair, which is not always in accord with their racial 
rank. The Quakers, who are very high in the scale of 
human development, reduce the dressing of the hair 
to a minimum; many American races and the Lapps 
exhibit the same indifference. On the contrary, the 
Papuans devote great attention to their hair, and they 
braid and arrange it in numerous different modes which 
truly merit the name of capillary edifices. It is remark- 
able among these people that the men give more care 
to their coiffure than the ladies, and voluntarily submit 
to the inconvenience of resting their heads while sleeping 
on uncomfortable wooden supports so that they may not 
disarrange the singular edifices which they have erected on 
their skulls. Even in Europe, among different nations and 
at different times, the hair has been subjected to the 
strangest arrangements, and to the most bizarre caprices. 
Twisted and retwisted, plaited or worn loose, it has 


1 See Mantegazza, Levene della bellezza. 


5 


66 PH YSIOGNOM Y. 


augmented in different ways the proportions of the head, 
simulating now a tower, now a nest, now pastilles. The 
esthetic and ethnical history of the hair would deserve a 
volume of no small proportions. é 

The Beard.—The beard is peculiar to man; every- 
where nature has denied it to woman. However, in 
many races, it is so deficient in men that they can 
scarcely be said to have any. Further, it does not corre- 
spond to any intellectual rank, for it is very developed 
at once among the Australians, and among the most 
beautiful and advanced types of the Aryans and the 
Semites. 

The most beardless people are generally those connected 
with the Mongolian and American races. Among the 
Lapps I found very little beard, and only on the upper lip 
and the chin. 

Many races endowed with beards are in the habit of 
plucking them out. This is the practice of the Tehuelches 
of the Argentine Pampas, who use a piece of silver for the 
purpose. ‘The same prevails among the Kalmucks and the 
Maoris, who have a proverb— There is no woman for a 
hairy man.” 

The Russians, Persians, Scandinavians, have very beau- 
tiful beards. Among some oriental races the clear outlines 
of the beard are very remarkable; while among the 
Australians and the Todas it is irregularly distributed over 
the face in little tufts. | 

A beard is pleasing both to women and to men, 
because it is a sexual character, and gives a virile aspect to 
the face. Tor the same reason it is a repulsive monstrosity 
in women; hence our proverb—“ 4 bearded woman greet 
with stones.” 

Physiognomists, astrologers, and poets have discoursed 
and oftener joked upon the significance of the beard. 
Remember the stanza which Guadagnoli has dedicated to 
the moustache— 


THE FEATURES. 67 


** Black, it bespeaks a manly boldness ; 
Brown, hot head and good temper ; 
Red, wiliness; blonde, a noble soul ; 
White, a want of vital heat ; 

Bristly, fury; thick, rusticity ; 
Coarse, audacity ; scanty, languor.” 


Generally the beard is lighter in colour than the hair both 
in man and in anthropoid apes. 

Moles.—Moles may be found all over the body, and even 
on the face, where, according to their position, their size, 
their form, and their colour, they are an ornament or a 
deformity. A little brown or very black mole, placed 
capriciously on the chin of a lady, or near her lip, or on her 
cheek, throws the whiteness of her skin into relief, and by 
arresting our attention adds another grace to the most 
perfect beauty. There are some little moles fortunate 
enough to have received more kisses than the middle of the 
mouth: they have in human beauty the same value as 
dimples, which, sometimes in one cheek, sometimes in 
both, seduce and fill with love the fortunate mortal who 
contemplates them. 

It is known that at different periods women have put 
artificial moles on their faces, and that the old physiog- 
nomists amused themselves with seeking a correspon- 
dence between the moles placed in different parts of our 
bodies. 

Dalla Porta, in the fifth book of his work, gives us a face 
in which these correspondences are noted. Jn ¢his plate, 
he says, zs seen a face half that of a man, half that of a 
woman, to show where the moles of either are to be found; 
the lines indicate the places of the face and of the body. These 
cabalistic laws, which, according to Dalla Porta, govern the 
distribution of moles on our bodies, are nearly all taken 
from the Arab, Hali Abenragel. Here is a sample of these 
strange ramblings— 

** Melampo said that a woman, if she has a mole on the 


638 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


eye or on the nose, will be more attracted than is fit to 
Venus ; if a woman has a mole on the side of the nose, her 
voluptuousness will be insatiable. Hali adds that if one 
has a mole on the ear there will be another on the 
ae ee 

The gallant Casanova must have read the old writers on 
physiognomy, when in Holland he claimed by the mole 
found on the face of a beautiful woman to divine the 
existence of another in more hidden parts. 

Wrinkles.—Wrinkles are folds or furrows, more or less 
deep, which form in the skin as an effect of time, or by 
the repeated action of certain muscular contractions, or, 
lastly, in consequence of defective nutrition. 

Wrinkles have been little studied, and well deserve a 
scientific monograph. I have consulted my illustrious 
friend, Professor Bizzozero, on their histological nature, and 
he has kindly replied, furnishing me with the few data 
which science possesses on this subject. 

‘They develop,” says Henle,’ ‘‘as wrinkles in the face 
during the course of a long life, in consequence of the 
diminution of elasticity and turgescence, of the extension 
and growing dilatation of the skin. . . . They do not only 
extend to the epidermis, for they are still to be seen on the 
dermis stripped of its epidermis.” 

According to O. Simon, the slight furrows which are 
scattered and anastomose over the whole surface of the 
body correspond in direction to the bundles of connective 
tissue ; their axes are parallel to those of the predominant 
connective bundles. C. Langer has demonstrated that 
by the anastomosing of the connective bundles rhomboidal 
meshes are formed, the long axes of which, in different 
regions, are parallel to the direction of the natural tension 
of the skin. They are, however, never parallel to the 
principal axis of the body, but on the trunk and at the 
extremities they lie obliquely, anteriorly, and below. 

1 Henle, System Anat., vol. ii. p. 9. 


THE FEATURES. 69 


I have found nothing of interest in the treatises of 
Kolliker, Stricker, Krause, Pouchet, and Tourneux. 

It seems, then, that wrinkles run through the entire 
dermis, and that their direction is determined by the pre- 
dominant direction of the connective bundles which con- 
stitute the reticular portion of the skin. 

The study of expression rather than histology should 
involve the investigation of wrinkles, since they afford 
inexorable marks of certain periods of human life, as 
Racine has said— 


“© Quand, par d’affreux sillons l’implacable vieillesse 
A sur un front hideux imprimé la tristesse.”’ 


They may also tell a page of our history— 


‘« Les rides sur son front ont gravé ses exploits.” 
CORNEILLE. 


Wrinkles may occur in any part of the body, on the hands, 
on the neck, on the stomach ; but they are more generally 
found on the face, and in the most mobile parts—for 
example, round the eye, on the chin, and in the interval 
from the lips to the nose and cheeks. 

According to their direction, wrinkles may be divided into 
horizontal, perpendicular to the axis of the body, oblique, 
arched, and confused or intersecting. 

The most frequent and characteristic wrinkles are the 
following— 

The zvansverse wrinkles of the forehead, which are found 
even in children who are consumptive, rickety, or idiots. 
They are normal in the healthy man who is over forty. 

The vertical wrinkles of the forehead, which appear very 
early in men who do much brain work, but which are 
appropriate to all at a certain age. 

Arched and intersecting wrinkles, which are situated in the 
middle of the lower region of the forehead, and which 
indicate long and intense physical or moral suffering when 
they appear too early. 


40 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


The crow’s feet, which show themselves inevitably at 
forty, and sometimes earlier. They are formed by wrinkles 
which radiate from the outer corner of the eye. 

The wrinkles of the nose, transverse or vertical, which 
appear either with maturity or in old age. 

The naso-labial wrinkle, which descends from the upper 
part of the wing of the nose to the corner of the mouth. 
It is perhaps the first wrinkle which time imprints, and its 
precocity may be hereditary. I have had it since I was 
twenty-two years of age. 

The geno-mental wrinkle, passing with a slight c curve from 
the cheeks to the chin. 

The J/ttle wrinkles with close meshes, which cover the 
face, and are a sign of age and decrepitude. 

The palpebral wrinkles, which I should like to call 
genital; they are very delicate, and appear on the upper 
eyelid, sometimes on the lower. They give a look of 
lassitude to the eye; they are frequently seen in libertines, 
and in women at their periods, especially when menstruation 
is irregular and painful. 

Wrinkles appear sooner in a man than in a woman; they 
are more precocious and deeper in nervous men whose faces 
are very mobile, and among those who, in consequence of 
successive maladies, have passed alternately from plumpness 
to thinness. 

For certain wrinkles there is no possible remedy, either of 
prevention or of cure. It would be as good to try and 
stay the wings of time. The Spanish proverb rightly says— 
“El dente miente, la cana engana, pero la arruga desengana” 
(“the teeth lie, the hair deceives, but wrinkles undeceive ”). 

To move the face as little as possible, to anoint it with 
greasy substances, to protect it from excessively hot rays of 
the sun, are good precautions against wrinkles; but for 
those whose happiness does not depend on their vanity, 
I fear the remedy would be worse than the evil. 

A natural and sovereign remedy lies in growing stout at » 


ba 
vi a~" 


Pa 7 - . 
adil 
a. 


~ # _ te) aa 
ee er oi, re. eee clad.) 2 
eet eee ete Fs 

ie eras by et me 


c 
q YT 


fe) LE FEATURES. 








od when wrinkles are wont to appear; the skin . E 
; and the folds which are beginning to form retard 
l appearance. On the contrary, nothing is more 

after having been fat up to forty, to grow thin | 

kling age. 

e on wrinkles contains the germ of a monograph, which, if 2 
will appear later. 

‘ 

‘= 


1. 


a) ee, 





CHAPTER YV. 


COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY OF THE HUMAN FACE, 
“ESTHETIC OF THE FACE, 


READING the title of this chapter one may think it pre- 
sumptuous and ridiculous to desire to embrace in a few 
pages a subject which would suffice for the meditation 
of an entire life. I hasten to reply that I give here the 
germ of two other books which will see light later on if time 
and my strength permit. 

In my JZicrocosm I shall give an “‘ Essay on Man,” where 
all ethnological questions which relate to ethnical variations 
in the human face will be treated. In my Zfzcure I shall 
try to give a ‘‘Treatise on Beautiful Things,” where, 
naturally, man will hold the first place. 

In this chapter I shall say enough to make the work on 
the Lxpression of Emotion complete in its members; even 
those being included which, although yet without nerve or 
muscle, are already drawn in their essential outline. He 
who knows how to read between the lines will find sketched 
there my ethnological and esthetic convictions, and will 
derive thence matter for long meditation, which perhaps will 
not be sterile. 

Human faces are so variable in their relative proportions, 
in their lines, in their agreements and disagreements, that 
we may say there are as many faces in the world as men, 
and that none has been twice repeated in the course of 
centuries. Some, however, resemble each other so much as 
to be taken one for the other (as happens sometimes with 
twins of the same sex); others, on the contrary, are so 


COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY. 92 


unlike that they seem to belong to animals of a different 
species. To bring together similar faces, to separate the 
unlike, is to classify and e¢nologise, which may seem easy 
but is in reality one of the most severe tasks which can be 
imposed on a naturalist. The differences proceed by 
infinitely small degrees ; the extreme poles are united by so 
many intermediate rings that there is enough to confuse and 
weary the most penetrating observer and the most skilful 
classifier. If it were possible for us to have at once before 
our eyes every human being we might unite the Venus 
of Milo to the Tungoos woman, the Apollo of Belvedere 
to the Australian, by an infinite series of intermediates, and 
pass from one to the other without a lacuna and without an 
obstacle. Some years ago I addressed to my friend, Pro- 
fessor Giglioli, an ethnological letter (Zan and Men: Intro- 
duction to a Journey Round the World in the Italian corvette, 
“Magenta.” Maisner, 1876), in which I made my confes- 
sion of faith on the human race. To-day, after the lapse of 
years, after the internal and external work of criticism, 
which eats into the steel of the most robust convictions, I 
experience a lively satisfaction in affirming that I still think 
the same. I have been able to modify the arrangement of 
some branch or some twig of the ethnological tree, but my 
syllabus has still for me all the authority of a dogma. Here 
is my syllabus, in which to replace the words man and race 
by face is to give my confession of faith on the comparative 
morphology of human faces. 

1. Man is one of the most cosmopolitan and variable of 
animals ; also he presents a very great variety of races and 
sub-races. 

2. The number of races is indefinite; many have dis- 
appeared ; others are forming and will form. 

3. The further we go back into history the more races and 
sub-races we find, because formerly men travelled less, and 
remained longer isolated from one another. 

4. At the foot and at the summit of the tree of humanity 


74 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


the branches and branchlets approximate, so that the 
highest and the lowest touch. The negro, who rises to 
the Caffir, approaches the European, and the European, 
degenerated by goitre, cretinism, or hunger, approaches 
the negro and Australian. 

5. Generally the lowest races are black or brown; the 
highest are white or almost white. 

‘6. In-the classification of races we ought as far as possible 
to exclude the question of origin, because investigation into 
origins is the most fertile source of ethnological errors. 

Since the day on which I published my ethnological tree, 
in which I had classed every race by the criterion of intelli- 
gence, this tree (Plate 4) has given birth to two others, 
which I now present to the world for the first time (Plates 
2 and 3). In the third plate we see races approximating in 
their external morphological characters, without any pre- 
conceived idea of monogenism or of polygenism, without 
any deference to any philological or ethnological authority 
whatever. In the fourth we have men distributed accord- 
ing to their rank in beauty such as we, Aryans, conceive it. 

Here we have three classifications—to wit, a system, a 
method, and an intermediate modus agendi—which has at 
once something of method and of system. In fact, in 
Plate 4 races are distributed by the sole criterion of intelli- 
gence; in Plate 2 by that of the skull, the colour of the 
skin, the nature of the hair, etc.; in Plate 3 we have the 
morphological element reinforced by subjective labours. 

The two systems of classification which resemble each 
other most in the distribution of the branches are the 
first and the second—an evident proof that the ethnological 
essay which I proposed to the anthropologists was not as 
systematic as it might appear at first sight. In fact, as 
the brain is a very complex organ, and so to say the 
supreme synthesis of all the vital energies, a hundred 
secondary characters are therein concentrated, by which it 
is modified, and with which it rises or degenerates. 


COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY. ~~ 75 


I think that we may reduce the principal ethnical types 
of the human face to the following— 


. Aryan type ) which are frequently mixed and confounded 
. Semitic type with one another. 
. Negro type. 


. Negrito type. 
. Hottentot type. 

Mongolian type. 

. Malay type fied towards the Aryan. 

. American type Mongolian, 

. Australian type. 

In Plate 8 we have three idols, the one an old Peruvian, 
the second a Maori, the third a Papuan, in which may be 
seen how the people of low development always give to 
their gods the ethnical type which is that of their race. As 
with the gods so with the national masks. Studying the 
stenterello, the gianduia, the meneghino, the pantaloon, the 
harlequin, and other Italian masks, we recognise that in 
these caricatures a people always personifies itself while - 
exaggerating the characters of its own physiognomy. 

Volumes will be written on beauty in general and on 
human beauty in particular, so long as men inhabit this 
planet, and schools of esthetics will be founded which will 
change their lines more than once. I shall also write my 
volume, which may remain vox clamans in deserto, if my 
opinion represent but the vote and thought of one, or 
which, under more favourable circumstances, may be 
considered as the utterance of an epoch and of a nation. 

Meanwhile, permit me to trace in the manner of the 
magician a triangle, which in my opinion includes all the 
esthetic casuistry. For me, this great problem is circum- 
scribed by the three lofty definitions which emanate from 
three genuses, not only diverse, but opposed— 


CON DUB wW DN 


© 


** Beauty is the splendour of truth.” —PLATo. 

‘* Beauty to the toad is his mate.” -VOLTAIRE. 

** Physical beauty: is it not subject to the caprices of the senses, of 
climate, and of opinion ?””—MIRABEAU. 


"6 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


In the beautiful we seek the type of perfection, the type 
of everything, the prototype of every type. The butterfly 
is beautiful when it combines ideal lightness with the 
dazzling and many-hued splendour of the forms proper to 
this insect; the tawny lion is beautiful in his strength with 
his great mane. Man is more beautiful than any living 
creature, because, placed at the summit of animal existence, 
he combines all the most elegant forms with the most 
powerful manifestations of life; he is beautiful above all 
to us because we surround him with a sympathy without 
limits, and because beauty is multiplied to infinity when a 
great number of intellectual wants are satisfied at once. 

There is a human beauty, a sexual beauty, a beauty for 
each age, for each race, for each family, for each individual. 
We believe too readily, to paraphrase the subtle definition 
of Voltaire, that the white woman is beautiful to us because 
we are white, and that to the negro in turn nothing is fairer 
than his coal-black mate with her thick lips. This is not 
true, at least so far as the negroes and the Americans of the 
south are concerned. If the negress or Indian woman is 
prized in proportion as she conforms to the type of her 
race, I can affirm that when they have to choose between 
a beautiful white woman and a _ beautiful negress, or 
beautiful Indian, they unhesitatingly give the preference 
to the first. 

Mancilla records in his military journey across the 
Argentine Pampas the following dialogue which he had 
with a Ranguele—! 

‘Which do you like best, a China or a Christian ? ” 

“ A Christian.” 

‘And why Pe” 

“The Christian is whiter, bigger; she has a more delicate 
skin; she is more charming.” 

I firmly believe in a type of human beauty superior to 


1 Lucio V. Mancilla, Una escursion a los Indios Ranqueles. Leipzig, 
Brochaus, 1877, vol. ii. p. 277. 


COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY. 7 


all the secondary types of beauty—Mongolian, American, 
negro, etc.—and I always find that when a man of inferior 
race is exceptionally beautiful he approximates to our 
Aryan type. We may see this among the Japanese women 
and among the Caffirs. 

Sex introduces such a disturbing element into human 
morphology that there are two types of beauty—one for 
man, the other for woman; and that in the same race the 
male and female are not always equally beautiful. It seems 
that the special type of each race lends itself better, one to 
the beauty of the male, another to that of the female. 
Thus in Italy the men are more beautiful than the women ; 
the contrary is the case in Spain. 

The most beautiful women are found, according to my 
knowledge, among the Spanish and the English. As to 
those of whom I only know by the report of others, I 
mention the beauty of the Georgians and the Circassians. 

We find admirable specimens of masculine beauty in 
Italy, England, and the East. 

The Tungoos women are perhaps the most horrible of all. 
In many of them the cheek bones occupy the largest part 
of the face, and the eyes are but long and narrow slits 
through which one catches sight of two little black globes 
without expression. 

Among ugly men are the Australians, the Mocovis of the 
Argentine Republic (whom I have visited several times), 
the inhabitants of Fez. 

Every race has the feeling of human fraternity; every 
man born under the sun feels the same impulse of excedsior. 
We see it in the repugnance which many very white 
mulattoes feel to avowing that they have negro blood in 
their veins, and still more in the horror which all experience 
at the idea of resembling apes. 

There are some negroes, Australians, and Papuans who 
pull out, file away, or stain their teeth so that they may 
not resemble dogs or apes. A low and hairy forehead, a 


78 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


prominent jaw, a nose reduced to a minimum, appear 
ugly to all, or at least to nearly all, the inhabitants of the 
globe. 

Like the butterfly, who, issuing from its chrysalis stage, 
rejects as a blemish all vestiges of its larval condition, 
men everywhere look upward, and touch the earth by the 
smallest possible part of their bodies. 

We, weaving phantasies at will, may make as many 
human races as there are distinct species ; we may modify 
and upset our systems and methods of classification: but, 
despite all, the bipeds who know how to light a fire and to 
speak, feel themselves to be brothers; despite the learned, 
they love and they kill each other, but over the corpses 
of those who succumb they weave again their knots of 
love. 


eo eds 


THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS. 





CHAPTER VI. 
THE ALPHABET OF EXPRESSION. 


Ir we would take the word expression in too wide a sense 
and give it its etymological signification, we should risk 
the danger of embracing at the same time too many 
different things, and of making physical expression 
synonymous with language. 

Language is more expressive than any physical expres- 
sion, but it is not the same thing, although the latter may 
be a part of language, or even substituted for it. Of this 
we may at any time obtain confirmation by watching a 
deaf mute, or two people who, without knowing a common 
language, have need of communicating their ideas or 
emotions to each other. 

The expression of emotion is one of those centrifugal 
energies which arise from those great transformers of force 
which we call nerve centres. A given quantity of move- 
ment from without in the form of light, of heat, of sound, 
is transformed into emotion or thought, which, taking a 
centrifugal direction, gives places to muscular movements. 
These movements may be cries, articulate words, or 
gestures. Generally the energy of expression is only a part 
of the transformed force, often even a very small part, 
which accompanies more complex and higher phenomena. 
The annexed figure represents graphically the way in which 


80 LH VSIOGNOM Y. 


the phenomenon of expression is produced. A sensation, 
S, reaches the centre, C, and is there transformed into Jove, 
which follows a centrifugal path along the line CA, anda 
current of expression which follows the line CM. 





Thus we may say that the expression is the extra current 
of the emotion and of the thought. 

The expression of emotion is one of the most elementary 
facts of nervous life; it is manifested even in very inferior 
organisms. Even infusoria, molluscs, insects, have move- 
ments which do not directly serve in alimentation, respira- 
tion, circulation, or generation, and which are purely 
expressive phenomena. Physical expression has in the 
biological economy two diverse and important functions. 

Lt may replace or complete language. 

Lt may defend the nerve centres and other paris of the 
body against dangers of different kinds. 

Like language, physical expression presents many varieties 
of form ; but it is always a more universal language. Words, 
whatever may be their origin, have always a conventional 
meaning; thus they are only of value to one who com- 
prehends them and follows their meaning. Spontaneous 
physical expression, on the other hand, is the language of 
all intelligent men, and extends its influence beyond the 
domain of humanity; it is comprehensible to those animals 
who most approximate to us by the development of their 
nerve centres. Say to a dog, to a child who does not 
yet know how to speak, or to a foreigner who does not 


THE ALPHABET OF EXPRESSION. 81 


know our language, the word Jdrigand, at the same time 
smiling benevolently or making affectionate gestures; these 
three beings, very different in their natures, but all equally 
ignorant of the sense of the word brigand, will reply to you 
with an expression of affection. Say to them, on the con- 
trary, the word dearest with an expression of hatred or a 
threatening gesture. You will see them shrink with terror, 
attempt to escape, or utter complaints. ‘This very simple 
example is enough to indicate the boundary which separates 
conventional language from the simple and elementary 
language of physical expression. 

Physical expression, however, has also many conventional 
signs, the meaning of which it is necessary to know, as 
these take the place of the words of a certain language. 
A Lombard, a Frenchman, a German, who found them- 
selves for the first time at Naples would certainly not 
understand the mute expressions of a Neapolitan, who to 
say “‘/Vo” closes his lips while throwing his head backwards, 
In the same way many people are not offended when they 
see a Milanese place his thumb on the point of his nose 
and stretch the other fingers of the hand towards his 
interlocutor, moving them alternately; and none of us 
would get into a passion if we saw this same Milanese 
cross two fingers at right angles to indicate a certain length, 
while this gesture would be enough to raise a tempest in 
the Argentine Republic. We shall not speak in this book 
of that part of physical expression which is quite con- 
ventional, and the study of which goes with that of the 
study of deaf mutes. We shall occupy ourselves here with 
the phenomena of spontaneous automatic expression, which 
are almost the same in every country in the world, and 
which constitute a veritable universal language. A caress, 
a kiss, a kindly smile, are interpreted everywhere as the 
signs of love; while the act of gnashing the teeth, that of 
raising the clenched fist, and others of the like nature, will 


always be considered as expressions of menace, rage, hatred. 
6 


82 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


There are certainly equivalent forms to express these senti- 
ments, but they are enough alike to prevent equivocation. 
Two Malays prefer to embrace each other nose to nose; 
we prefer to kiss with the lips: but no one would take the 
action of rubbing nose to nose as an expression of hatred ; 
and every form—differing among different people—of kindly 
and respectful salutation will be always and everywhere 
taken for what it is meant to be. 

But more frequently physical expression, without being 
substituted for articulate speech, completes and modifies, 
or reinforces it. 

The second function of physical expression is to protect 
us from danger. A cat, face to face with a dog much 
stronger than itself, bristles up its fur and enlarges 
itself so as to simulate a much greater size than it really 
possesses ; in the same way, by threatening with the fist, 
showing our teeth, rumpling the brows, we seek to make a 
formidable appearance that we may exhibit all our power of 
offence. 

Many gestures, without really defending us, show our 
intention of defending ourselves. ‘To close our eyes at a 
flash of lightning, to raise our arms above our heads when 
the earth quakes, certainly does not protect us, but it is an 
automatic expression of defence. 

To maintain the thesis that all expression is defensive 
would be to utter an opinion paradoxical in appearance but 
true at bottom. When emotion is strong it may kill us if 
it does not find vent by means of the motor nerves and 
translate itself into a phenomenon of expression. In many 
cases the nerve-centres and, in consequence, life, are 
endangered by an inability to weep or laugh. We all know 
the story of the husband who killed his wife by binding her 
down tightly and tickling the soles of her feet. Many like 
facts occur every day in the battle of life. 

The most eloquent man in the world, if he had to speak 
in a moment of great emotion with his limbs bound down 


reat ABET OF EXPRESSION. 83 


to his body, would experience an unspeakable torture ; his 
eloquence would be stilled and transformed into disorganised 
and delirious convulsions. On this account I believe I may 
formulate a law which marks one of the fundamental letters 
of the alphabet of expression. 

The wealth of the elements of expression ts always in 
close relation with the intensity and the sensitiveness of the 
psychical act. 

A slight emotion leaves us almost motionless, while a 
very great emotion produces a very hurricane of expressive 
movements. If by the excess of the centrifugal discharge 
the muscles remain in a state of static contraction, the 
excess of expression may simulate tetanus. 

Thought, first and foremost, a mathematical phenomenon, 
has nearly always a less expansive expression than feeling. 

To convince oneself of the difference of the parts played 
in expression by thought and feeling, it is enough to com- 
pare an orator who is reading his discourse with one who 
abandons himself to inspiration. In the first case gesture 
is rare, studied, cold, often out of place and inappropriate. 
In the second it is vigorous, efficacious, and largely 
expansive. The effect of words read or spoken exactly 
corresponds to this difference of physical expression. No 
book will ever take the place of a speech or of a lesson. 
If we are at times inclined to hurl anathemas on the worship 
of our age for parliaments and speeches, we must yet 
confess that the spoken word is one of the greatest human 
forces. Every religion and many philosophical schools 
have been founded by word and by expression more than 
by books. There may be an absolute identity of ideas 
in a written and a spoken book; but these ideas, 
issuing from the burning lips of an inspired man, enter 
into the brain of the multitudes by way of the ear, which 
is the high-road of feeling. The written word, on the 
contrary, is cold; it reaches the intelligence by the eye, 
which is an intellectual sense, and little sensitive. This 


84 PHVSIOGNOMY. 


perhaps is one of the reasons why the blind are less un- 
happy than the deaf mute. The latter is deprived of 
emotion ; the other has only lost the sight of forms. The 
spoken word is apostolical; it is seen, it is felt, it is 
absorbed, living and palpitating; it is impregnated with _ 
human sensations and emanations. I give a few facts, 
taken from the most varied sources, to maintain the truth 
of this contention. 

Call out in the middle of a crowd—* A conflagration! 
a conflagration! ”—or begin to cry—‘“‘ Fire! fire !—while 
at the same time you run off gesticulating. In the first 
case many may stop and inquire. In the second there will 
be a general and irresistible stampede. Gesture is more 
automatic than speech, and automatically induces imitation. 
Of this we may convince ourselves by suddenly opening an 
umbrella in the middle of the street when the weather is 
uncertain, yet without actual rain, or by putting the hand 
into the pocket in an omnibus as though to pay the fare. 
Many umbrellas will be opened and many persons will draw 
out their pence by the simple force of automatic imitation. 

Remember the tumult which broke out one day in a 
theatre in Germany when by chance the Olympian Goethe 
happened to be in the balcony. Scarcely had he risen 
and made a gesture to calm the waves and the pande- 
monium of the crowd than all was silent as with a spell, 
and without a word from him. If, on the contrary, he had 
spoken without rising and making a gesture, the effect 
would have been much less, and perhaps 77. 

All great orators have strong power of expression which 
adds to the efficaciousness of their words. With many — 
a certain gesture, a certain 7, is necessary, that their 
words may flow easily and brilliantly. Minghetti cannot 
speak unless he has a paper-knife in his hand. Poor 
Boggio, of tragic memory, had to raise one leg and worry 
the bottom of his trousers before he achieved eloquence. 

A friend, importunate, if any ever deserved the term, 


THE ALPHABET OF EXPRESSION. 85 


writes us an eloquent letter to ask for money, and we refuse. 
Another comes himself and, with a piteous gesture and a 
skilful expression, obtains at once what the former failed to 
gain. 

A woman who has resisted a hundred seductive letters 
will yield perhaps to the first pathetic look, to the first 
loving caress. 

The sympathetic relation between the psychical facts 
comes perhaps from the analogy of their inner natures, 
and probably from the identity and relation of the centres 
'of expression which produce them. An_ intellectual 
phenomenon raises a thought; an emotion awakens an 
emotion ; an automatic action calls forth another automatic 
action. 

If from individual we pass to great social and ethnical 
facts we always see the same law verified. The more 
feeling a nation has, the more rich and eloquent are its 
methods of physical expression. This can be seen in a 
picture and sculpture gallery when men of different 
characters and diverse race stand in the presence of a 
moving work of art. And yet this interesting scene of 
comparative physical expression, instead of inciting to an 
analytical and profound study of the psychical constitution of 
the different human families, for the most part arouses vulgar 
impertinences. Italians, of animated expression, say of the 
English—They feel nothing! And the English say of 
Italians—They are buffoons! Neither of these two imperti- 
nences has any foundation. The Italian nerve cell discharges 
at once the centrifugal energy which accumulates there; 
unfortunate for it if by the thousand telegraphic threads 
of expression it should not find as many safety-valves! 
The English cell is deeply charged, and slowly imprisons 
the accumulated force. But men to the end of time, 
instead of studying each other and trying to know each 
other better, to love each other more, to esteem each 
other more, will continue to throw in each other’s faces 


86 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


these international insults, which are summed up in the 
more vulgar formule—‘‘ He is a genius, but he is mad.” 
“He is a happy man, but he is a fool !” | 

In the expression of the emotions there are some acts 
which are not directly defensive, but which should be 
ranged among the numerous phenomena of sympathy 
which the divers regions of the nervous system present. 
If we do not always keep in mind the sympathetic automa- 
tism of many gestures, we shall never understand one-half 
of the expression of the emotions. In the same way, 
unless we study the contrast of our will with automatism, 
we shall not understand the demi-tints, the varied results of 
expression. 

Here are four different facts, all of which exemplify what 
we affirm. A dog looking at a savoury piece of meat at 
once pricks up his ears in the direction of the coveted 
morsel. 

A billiard player seeing his ball impelled in the wrong 
direction, throws eyes, lips, often the whole body, into the 
line which it should have followed. 

The tailor giving all his attention to the cutting of a 
precious stuff, accompanies his scissors with a synchronous 
movement of the jaws. 

The rower often makes a movement of the lips at the 
end of each sweep of the oar. 

When our attention is directed to a phenomenon for the 
purpose of observing it, the spontaneous and natural action 
is nearly always destroyed. ‘This we see nearly every day 
in the case of yawning, which is promptly stopped by an 
inopportune observer. wer 

Including all living beings in a general view, we may say 
that the expression of emotion augments in intensity and 
variety as the animal rises to a higher scale, and becomes 
more sociable. ‘The oyster itself has its expression of pain 
when we sprinkle it with lemon juice; but from this to 
Niobe or to the Laocoon there is a long interval. 


THE ALPHABET OF EXPRESSION. 87 


With the wealth of physical expression wealth of 
anatomy always corresponds. ‘The expression of the white 
man is higher than that of the negro, and the latter higher 
than that of the ape, because the facial muscles are more 
and more distinct in proportion as we rise from the 
anthropoid ape to the Aryan. It is very probable that in 
some great dramatic actors, and in persons who can imitate 
by the movements of their face the grimaces of animals 
and the most different emotions, we should find a more 
delicate and more complete division of work in the anatomy 
of the facial muscles. Here is what Bischoff has written 
on the subject— 

“In my young chimpanzee, as in the ourang-outang, and 
in the hylobate, there are just round the curve of the eye- 
lids, the curve of the mouth, and the buccinator, certain 
muscular fibres to which the names of the corresponding 
muscles of the human face might be given. Still it would 
be difficult to justify this identification, because these 
muscles are not at all isolated from each other. 

“The same is the case among many other apes, and I 
believe that this may agree with the ancient opinion that 
man is distinguished from all other animals, apes included, 
by the greater development and more complete isolation of 
the muscles of the face. ‘The apes, it is true, are great at 
grimacing, and the lowest passions of desire and of anger 
are energetically depicted on their faces; but the physiog- 
nomical expression of our face, which renders in so 
faithful and characteristic a manner every emotion and 
every passion, excels theirs, as much as the development of 
facial muscles excels that of the ape’s.”? 

Among our domestic animals also expression keeps pace 
with intelligence; while the pig and donkey have poor 
powers of expression, the horse and the dog are richer. 
The more they approximate to us by their anatomy, the 

1 Bischoff, Bettrage, zur Anatomie des Hylobates lenciscus. Miinchen, 
1870. 


“a yi 
io 


vee oe al he PG a Pe ae 
: =e Tele ; ~ eee tiie - 
ae - es J af) ee oN ee ce a 
aut < ¥ ep s 





88 . PHYSIOGNOMY. ae 


. Paden 
more easily we understand animals, and the mor 
Hey st cee us. And so it has been since me : 


nature had united us in a great biological ann psy 
fraternity. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE DARWINIAN LAWS OF EXPRESSION. 


In the preceding chapter I have attempted to reduce the 
laws which govern the expression of the emotions to their 
most simple form, and to trace, so to say, their alphabet. 
I have certainly not attempted to give all the laws of 
expression. I shall try to broadly sketch the most 
important of their details in the rest of this book. Here I 
desire to rapidly discuss the three fundamental principles 
on which the expression of the emotions is based according 
to Darwin. These three laws do not constitute, in my 
opinion, the principal title of the great English naturalist 
to glory. But as they are enumerated in an immortal book, 
which has caused this order of study to make an enormous 
stride, we ought to know them and examine up to what 
point and in what way they are in accord with natural 
phenomena. 

1. Icall the first law of Darwin ¢he principle of the associa- 
tion of useful attitudes. Certain complex expressions are 
directly or indirectly advantageous in certain conditions of 
the nerve centres. When these conditions are reproduced, 
even to a slight degree, this expression is realised by force 
of habit, even though it may be no longer of any use. 

2. Lrinciple of antithesis. Certain psychical conditions 
bring certain habitual actions which are useful. When the 
nerve-centres are in an opposite condition there is an 
involuntary tendency to make directly contrary movements. 

3. Principle of actions due to the constitution of the nerve- 
centres, independently of the will, and up to a certain point 
also of custom. 


90 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


With all the respect due to one of the greatest observers 
and greatest thinkers of our age, I think these three 
principles badly formulated and very confused. Nowhere 
more than here has Darwin shown the defects of his too 
analytical mind. And yet many believe he was inclined to 
too wide a synthesis! Wide if you will, but wide as nature 
is wide, one of whose most admirable interpreters he is. 

The first principle is badly formulated. ‘The idea in it 
is rather stamped than sculptured. As for the second, as 
well say that the opposite causes produce opposite effects, 
for the cases of apparent antithesis are ultimately but 
phenomena of sympathy. Unless I am mistaken, we 
cannot call the third assertion a principle at all. To 
say that certain nervous currents come in one direction and 
some in another does not explain anything. ‘To say that 
pleasure causes laughter and grief causes weeping is to 
affirm an evident fact, but not to explain it. 

If I were allowed to translate the three Gothic laws 
formulated by Darwin into the more symmetrical form 
of Latin, I should enunciate these principles as follows— 

1. There is a useful expression of emotion, defensive. 

2. There are certain facts of expression, sympathetic. 

If, after having ventured this somewhat summary 
criticism, we pass to the details of Darwin’s work, we find 
therein true discoveries made in a domain hitherto aban- 
doned to empiricism and divination; and we shall find 
there a great wealth of details. Here are some— 

The closing of the eyelids protects the eye; but we 
frequently close them when no danger threatens; we close 
them, for instance, if we suddenly hear a loud noise. If 
we neglect to take account of this automatic tendency to 
self-defence, half of the expression of emotion remains 
obscure. 

I frequently find an identical, or, at least, a very similar 
expression for very different sensations and emotions. But 
this at once leads me to imagine that there must be 


DARWINIAN LAWS OF EXPRESSION. 91 


between these two sensations or emotions a common 
character in the central phenomenon which is associated 
with them. We shall return to these facts later on; but we 
may examine a few at once. 

We scratch our head if we feel any sort of irritation 
there; but we perform the same action to help us to an 
idea, or a word which evades us, to help us out of a 
perplexity. 

We raise the upper lip and pucker the nostrils to ward 
off a bad smell which enters with the inspired air and 
reaches the mucous membrane; but we make the same 
gesture to express contempt or aversion for any one, or 
anything which offends our dignity or our moral sense. 

We rub our eyes to get out a grain of dust or a fly which 
has got in, and causes us inconvenience; but we have 
recourse to the same action to get rid of a painful idea. 

We cough to rid ourselves of any phlegm which en- 
cumbers the pharynx, the larynx, or the trachea; we also 
cough to clear up our ideas, to find the right word or 
phrase, to extricate ourselves from embarrassment, to gain 
time. The great Cavour continually did so in his parlia- 
mentary speeches. 

We put our hands forward (if we have time) when we 
fall; but we do the same if in play we fall upon a cushion 
or a bed, where we could not do ourselves any injury. 

We draw back our head from a lighted torch, or from the 
hands of an over-excited speaker, but we make use of the 
same gesture to express our withdrawal from a proposition 
which we cannot accept. 

_ We close our eyes at the sight of a horrible scene; but 
we do the same in the dark if our imagination calls up 
before us a terrible picture. 

Analyse these facts well and you will be able to under- 
stand nearly all. Sometimes expression is absolutely and 
purely defensive; sometimes it is only apparently defen- 
sive in the face of an imaginary danger; sometimes it is 


92 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


sympathetic under the dominion of an emotion analogous 
to another emotion which expresses itself in defensive 
gestures. 

Many phenomena of expression do not appear to us 
to have any defensive character in consequence of our 
ignorance of biology. But Darwin has perfectly explained 
that the construction of the orbicular muscle of the 
eyelids in crying protects the delicate organ of sight from 
congestion. Likewise, to bite the lips, or any other part of 
the body, to tear one’s flesh, or to tear out the hair, may 
appear to the vulgar but to add pain to pain; but, on the 
contrary, these artificial lacerations, causing a diversion 
from the troubles of the more important nerve-centres, 
preserve the brain from grave dangers which would result 
from too vivid painful emotions. 

Darwin confesses that he does not see the utility of the 
trembling which accompanies fear. But, after my experi- 
mental studies in pain, I find it extremely useful; for it 
tends to produce heat, and warms the blood, which under 
the influence of fear tends to become excessively chilled. 
In the same way I believe that I have found why, with great 
pain arising from the sense of touch, or feeling generally, 
we leave off breathing and only gasp spasmodically. We 
produce thus a slight anzesthesia of the nerve-centres, and 
indirectly succeed in rendering the pain more bearable. 

Finally, sobs, loud complaints, all forms of groaning, are 
useful, because thereby we excite in those who listen to us 
a compassion which may be of aid to us. This often 
occurs with animals, and I have noticed it for my part in 
America, in the case of the ox, and of a little paroquet 
(Conurus monachus). 

Defence and sympathy which govern all expression are 
always more automatic in the animal than in man, in the 
child than in the adult. ‘This is a fact not peculiar to the 
expression of emotion, but is common to all acts of 
psychical life. The Sphinx macroglossa scarcely issues 


DARWINIAN LAWS OF EXPRESSION. 93 


from its chrysalis before it begins to fly on to the flowers 
and to execute perfectly all those movements which are 
necessary to keep it suspended in the air and to suck honey 
from flowers. We, on the contrary, sons of Prometheus, 
how much work, what study, how much experience we need 
before we succeed even in carrying a spoon straight to our 
mouths! The horse, from the moment of its birth, runs 
and leaps. We require months and years to learn to draw 
on a pair of gloves. 

However, we find in animals expression which is not 
directly defensive, but only so by atavism, and which, 
consequently, is purely sympathetic. 

Darwin has the merit of having collected and interpreted 
many facts of this sort. The dog, before stretching himself 
on the carpet, turns round several times and digs with his 
paws in front, as though he would beat down the grass to 
make a comfortable place for himself. At another time he 
will scratch at a hard soil to try and bury his excrements, 
although there is neither earth nor leaves to remove. 
Similarly cats dislike to wet their feet, perhaps because 
their ancestors were born on the dry soil of Egypt, and they 
have a tendency to cover every place which is a little damp 
with mould or dust. Darwin’s daughters succeeded in 
making a young cat go through these movements by 
spilling some water in a glass placed behind its head. 

In automatic expression children are midway between 
animals and us. Frequently a schoolmaster will punish a 
whole class which has begun to cough and sneeze because 
one pupil has coughed or sneezed involuntarily. He 
genuinely believes that they are all guilty of having coughed 
or sneezed on purpose. And yet it is nearly always, if not 
always, an irresistible automatism which impels children to 
do in imitation what one of them had done in real need. 
It is the old story of the sheep who all run away from the. 
fold when one runs, and who all enter when the one has 
entered, And we adults, who are neither children nor 


94 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


sheep, also participate in this animal automatism. The 
claqueurs and jischiatorit by profession know this well; they 
often succeed in determining the success or failure of a 
play by organising clapping and applause so as to lead the 
crowd to automatically applaud or hiss. Generals who 
have commanded in great battles could tell of tragic 
facts in very divers fields which happened for the same 
reason. 

The instances of sympathetic expression are more diffi- 
cult to explain than defensive phenomena, but with patient 
and deep analysis they too, in the end, may be accounted 
for. 

I should like to arrange them in the following cate- 
gories— 

Lmitative Sympathy.—This is the most common and the 
easiest to understand. We yawn, we run away, we look 
into space, because others yawn, run away, or look into 
space. 

Muscular or Mechanical Sympathy.—We say “ Vo” first 
with the head, then with the hand, then again, if need be, 
with the trunk. We threaten by opening the mouth, by 
looking askance, by closing the fist, and sometimes by 
raising the foot. 

Sympathy of Functions—The most elementary amorous 
expression is located in the pelvis, where the genital organs 
are situated, then extends to the hand which caresses, and 
still more, to the mouth which plays so great a part in the 
pleasures of love. 

Obscure Sympathies of the Nerve Centres.—These are the 
most obscure facts of animal expression, and they can only 
be explained by the future progress of histology. Such are 
the actions of scratching the head; of closing the eyes to 
express embarrassment, uncertainty, fear; that of elevating 
the nose to show contempt. 

The general physiology of all acts of sympathetic 
expression is figured in the following diagram— 


DARWINIAN LAWS OF EXPRESSION. 95 





A central emotion, x, being given, to find why it radiates 
in the sympathetic centres a, 4, ¢, d,¢, f,g,% This first 
problem once solved, the secondary problems which follow 
must be solved— 

What does a given expressive movement signify P 

What intensity of emotion does it denote? 

What esthetic, moral, intellectual warmth does it indicate ? 

Is it defensive in reality or only in appearance, or is it 
sympathetic ? | 

Is it the exact expression of truth, or is it totally or 
partially simulated or replaced by other disturbing causes? 

When for each expressive motion we are able to reply 
to all these questions we shall have the right to say that 
we know it wholly, in its origin, its progress, and in its 
details. 

In the science of nature, it is often more difficult to 
question than to reply, and a well-put question elicits reply 
spontaneously and easily. 


CHAPTER VIIL. 


CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIONS—GENERAL VIEW OF ALL 
PHENOMENA OF EXPRESSION. 


WHEN we view a natural phenomenon we may, observers or 
artists, feel proud at our success in discovering its principal 
features, the shadows and penumbre, and especially at 
being able to reproduce it faithfully on the page of a book, 
on a canvas, or in marble. But our pride falls when we 
would place this phenomenon in its natural position 
under its rubric in our system, and make of it another 
link in the great chain of antecedent and consequent, 
of cause and effect, of morphological harmonies and 
dissonances. It is then that our ignorance appears in its 
humiliating nakedness; we feel that we are but the modest 
interpreters of the surface of things, and the system of our 
classification shows all its weakness. And yet thereby we 
must always reach the relentless scrutiny of our conscience 
in which science with modest frankness avows the un- 
certainty of her conclusions, and in which art renews itself 
in the pure sources of truth. | 

This is what we wish to do for the science of expression, 
in order that we may know precisely what its actual 
boundaries are, and in order that our work may provide 
posterity with the balance-sheet of our knowledge upon the 
subject which we have undertaken to treat. 

Let us then begin with a little analysis, so that we may 
afterwards rise somewhat higher and draw bolder lines. 
Every phenomenon of expression should be studied in 
the nature of the emotion which gives birth to it, in the 


CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIONS. 97 


degree of the emotion, in its progress, in the disturbing 
elements which may accompany and modify its spontaneous 
expression. 

The nature of the emotion is the characteristic and 
principal element of all expression. We will present ina 
general view the principal expressions of which man is 
susceptible by dividing them into three great categories— 

LEixpressions of Sense. 

Expressions of Passion. 

Lixpressions of Intellect. 


EXPRESSIONS OF SENSE. 


Stages of Desire, Pleasure, and Pain. 


Needs of nutrition. ee 

Muscular activity. 
Muscular repose. 
Sleep. 

Cold. 

Heat. 

Need of Oxygen. 

The zest of living. 
The pain of living. 
The pleasure of death. 
The pain of death. 
Diverse needs of sense and of excretion. 


General organic 
needs. 


Expressions relative to touch, 


: 39 ‘ 99 taste. 
Needs of special i" . ee 
senses. “ es hearing, 
” > sight. 
Desire to fertilise. 
Needs of reproduc- »» to be fertilised. 
tion. sy _ to bear children. 


1, to suckle. 


Expression of 


Derivative. 
modesty. 


7 


PHYSIOGNOMY, 


eda 


EXPRESSION OF THE PASSIONS. sie a 


Stages of Desire, Pleasure, and Fain. 


Feelings relative to 
self, 


Feelings relative to 
others. 


EXPRESSIONS OF THE INTELLECT. 
Stages of Desire, Pleasure, and Pain, 


Attention. 
Meditation. 
Expression of mechanical work. 


99 
5) 
59 
39 
3) 
19 
be) 


” 


Pain of doubt. 

Joy of discovery. ; 
fEsthetic pleasures and pains. 
Pleasures and pains of injustice. 


Stupor. 


Filial love. 


Love of oneself. 
Hatred of oneself. 
Fear. 

Courage. 
Self-esteem. 
Physical vanity. 
Humility. 
Decorum. 


Sexual love. 
Maternal love. 
Paternal love. 





Fraternal love and love of humanity. | ie 
Compassion. 
Veneration. 
Religious sentiment. 
Hatred. 

Anger. 

Cruelty. 

Contempt. 

Trony. 


» artistic work. 

3» scientific work, 

y, literary creation. 

3» poetic ecstasy. 

», the work of observa 
9s Speech. 

», discussion, 

», harmonious work. 


CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIONS. 99 


This cursory view almost gives an elementary analysis of 
expression, for I have tried to group into natural families 
the simplest and most ordinary expressions which are 
associated with the life of the senses, of emotions, and of 
thought. But it is seldom that a phenomenon of expression 
occurs in its simplest condition; more frequently it is com- 
bined with others. We have, then, binary and ternary 
combinations. Here is a sketch of the most habitual 
compound expressions— 


SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL COMPOUND 
EXPRESSIONS. 


Ln the Domain of Sense. 


( In sexual intercourse. 

In child-birth. 

In suckling. 

In itching. 

In the rapid transition from cold 
{ to hot, and vice versa, 


Pleasure and pain. 


In the Domain of the Passions. 


Melancholy. 

Cruelty and luxury. 

Pride and irony. 
Humiliation and irony. 
Love and ecstasy. 

Horror and compassion. 
Fear and audacity. 

Vanity and modesty. 
Eagerness to possess and cruelty. 
Love and rage. 

Rage and irony. 
Veneration and stupor. 
Contempt and rage. 
Cruelty and pride. 
Physical pain and courage. 
Strife and cruelty. 
Resignation and joy. 


100 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


Ln the Domain of Intellect. 


Melancholy, 

Festasy and mechanical movements. 
Exercise of thought and dancing. 
Work of education and contempt. 


99 99 9 love. 

.5 _ », hatred. 

9 7 ” pain. 
Labour of speech and pride. 

:; ne »» humility. 

a os »» strife. 

3 m 5, hatred. 


a2 99 99 love. 
Artistic work and luxury. 


A transitory emotion has a fugitive expression which leaves 
no trace; but when it is repeated several times it leaves on 
the face and other parts of the body a lasting impression 
which may reveal to us a page in a man’s history. Per- 
manent expressions may be grouped in the following table— 


PERMANENT EXPRESSIONS. 


The consumptive countenance. 


3, dropsical aS 

», calculous oa 

Expressions produced by | ,, cancerous Be 
permanent conditions »» neuralgic ») 
of the organism. », hypochondriac ” 

53 Maniac 7 

», melancholy 3 

»» dyspeptic ” 


The countenance of the glutton. 


” ”” »,  famished. 
Expressions produced by ” . »» libertine. ; 
the abuse of a func- J »» » »» muscular exhaustion. 
tion, or by certain | »» ” », the dissolute. 
nerve stimulants. ” ” due to effects of coca. 
” ” ” ” opium. 
” ” » ” hashish, 


CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIONS. 01 


The melancholy countenance. 


9» pessimist se 
», optimist es 
», disturbed . 
»» debased es 
», discouraged a 


»» audacious 
») Suspicious 


99 


99 


», defiant eo 

” modest . 

»» ascetic ie 

», chaste Be 

», hypocritical a 

» frank - 

Expressions produced | » 2Varicious ff 
by the repetition of / ” despairing 9 
certain emotions or\ ” benevolent Re 


certain intellectual | ”’ misanthropic ,, 


labours. » giddy + 
», sociable 3 
», imperious - 
»» ferocious + 
eo creel i 
» meditative By 
», stupid ns 
», inspired Ms 
»» ecstatic 4 
», frightened . 
»» pugnacious Ae 
», contemptuous ,, 
») ironical eo 
»» patibulary Vs 
»y inquisitorial 6 


Th h i nd es 7 n f th ° t. 
Expressions pro- ee et Or ee ee 


a2 ” ” ” soldier. 
ccs oe e a7 9 9 chemist. 
ercise of cer-]}  ”’ ” » 9 druggist. 
tain profes-| ”’ 29 ” ” sailor. 
sions. : :2 » », notary. 

Ps ” ” 1 clockmaker. 


It seems that after so many tables and rubrics our 
work of the classification of phenomena of expression 


102 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


ought to be ended; but we have still to define and to rank 
certain forms-of expression which are independent of the 
nature of the emotion, and which correspond to the degree 
of the latter, and still more to certain conditions, transitory 
or permanent, in which the individual is placed. 

Thus the expression may be strong, feeble, uncertain, 
confused, eloquent, or scarcely perceptible, disturbed, con- 
vulsive, and that whatever may be its signification, whether 
joy or pain, hatred or love, similarly each individual, 
according to his condition of health or disease, of strength 
or weakness, and according to the permanent conditions 
resulting from his nervous organisation, will express any 
emotion in a manner peculiar to himself. ‘Thus it has 
been said of the form of the expression that it depends 
on age, sex, and race. It is doubtless for this reason that 
so few artists can express in their works so many different 
elements, when they have to render in the face or the body 
of a statue the nature of the emotion, its degree, and all 
those gradations of the external and of the internal 
medium. Any one can succeed in representing a laughing 
child, a dying man; but there is but one Laocoon, and but 
one Inconsolable. 

The general forms of expression are as follows— 


Feeble, strong, violent expression; uncertain, confused, 
evident expression; expression of tension, of expansion; 
debauched and dying expression, disturbed and convulsive 
CxPression. 


To end our attempt at classification, we have only to 
point out the analogies, the most frequent cases, in which 
very different psychical facts of nature are expressed by 
the same, or at least by a very similar phenomenon. ‘The 
great part of these agreements, syzonyms of expressions, 
are in great part here indicated for the first time, and may 
afford us valuable help in disentangling some of the most 
obscure laws of human and animal psychology. 


CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIONS. 103 


Synonyms of Expression. 


Extreme degrees of voluptuousness and of pain. 

Pleasures of smell and amorous voluptuousness. 

Pains of smell and expression of disdain. 

Pains caused by bitterness and the dumb suffering of self-esteem. ~ 
Pleasures and pain of hearing—emotional pleasures and pains. 
Pleasures and pains of sight—intellectual pleasures and pains. 
Traumatic pains and expression of moral struggling. 

Pleasure of feeling well and complacency of self-esteem. 
Expression of luxuriousness and cruelty. 

Expression of modesty and chastity. 

Pains of cold and fear. 

Pains of heat and expression of rage. 

Expression caused by tickling—pleasures and pains of ridicule. 
Expression of intestinal pains and disgust of life, or hypochondria. 
Wonder and fright. 

Panic, fear, and madness. 


CHAPTER IX. 
THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 


PLEASURE is one of the most universal and elementary 
emotions of all living beings. It is one of the poles of 
animal, and perhaps of vegetable, sensibility. And thus its 
expression is rich, varied, and characteristic, and one which, 
it would seem, should have been the first to attract and 
engage the spirit of observation of the curious who were 
first to direct their attention to man in order to study 
his movements. And yet it was not so: the old works of 
physiognomists only devoted a few pages to laughter, which 
seems to have been to them the only expression of pleasure 
worthy of being studied; and yet in these pages we shall 
find more astrology and cabalism than genuine and 
attentive observation. Physiognomy has been an astrolo- 
gical science from its birth, and this original sin has been 
perpetuated to our own days, for nowhere has a saviour 
appeared to cleanse and to heal it. 

The good Cornelio Ghiradelli, of Bologna (the eminent 
Vespertine academician), in the eighth discourse of his 
Phystognomical Cephalogia (Bologna, 1670), treats of the 
Laughing mouth and foul breath (a singular association). 
He there quotes Aristotle, and distinguishes between the 
moderate laughter of a wise man and the immoderate and 
unruly laughter which Cicero cails cachinnus, and which 
ts peculiar to fools, And he continues thus— 

“Laughter is an inarticulate sound produced by the 
pleasure which one feels at a thing done or said in a 
ridiculous manner, or which is monstrous or very imperfect. 
We say, then, that moderate laughter is a sign of wisdom, of 


THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 105 


serenity, and sprightliness. Immoderate laughter, on the 
contrary, is a sign of folly or stupidity. Excessive and 
prolonged bursts of laughter were displeasing to Seneca, to 
Pythagoras, and to Plutarch, and should be an abomination 
to every wise and prudent man. 

“The Emperor Heliogabalus laughed so loud that when 
at the theatre his laughter rose above that of the whole 
crowd. And Boccaccio has said of such laughter: Master 
Simon laughed with his throat so far open that it would 
have been easy to have pulled out all his teeth. 

‘‘Democritus was surnamed Gelasinus, because of his 
inextinguishable laughter; laughing continually at every- 
thing, he enlarged his mouth up to his ears; his teeth were 
always seen; his face always wrinkled with smiles. Of him 
Juvenal said— 

“ Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat 

Democritus... . 

“Zoroaster, the inventor of magic, was born laughing, as 
Pliny attests, lib. vii., cap. xvi. 

“He who laughs out loud is brazenfaced, says Rasi; and 
those who laugh till they cough or so as to lose their breath 
are tyrants. If the voice alters in laughing, says Michael 
Scot, it is a sign of arrogance, of avarice, of tyranny, of 
falsehood, and of treachery. 

“He who has thin lips, and with a joyous face laughs 
little, will be voluptuous; the mouth which is always laugh- 
ing is the sign of a wicked, lying, perverse, dissimulating, 
and malicious man, whom no one should trust, says Albertus 
Magnus, for laughter in the mouth, corresponding to the 
eyes, is always bad, and is proper to women. 

** Moderate laughter indicates a benevolent, conciliatory 
man, prudent in all, says Rasi. Michael Scot says they are 
skilful, sagacious, of keen minds, intelligent, and industrious. 

**Tsocrates writes that Plato had such grave manners, and 
showed so much reserve in his face, that he was never seen 
to laugh, as too was the case with Clazomenes. We read 


106 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


that Crassus was of so severe an aspect, and of such austere 
manners, that he never laughed in his life.” 

The Jesuit Niquetius,! in his chapter dedicated to 
laughter, after many quotations nearly always in its favour, 
already gives us a little bit of physiology— 

“. .. repentina fit dilatatio cordis ac magna vitalium 
spirituum effusio quae confestim musculos thoracis et 
diaphragmatis concutiunt et titillant, ad motum harum 
partium sequitur motus musculorum, qui a lateribus buccz 
sunt, fitque ille oris deductio, quam risum vocamus, idque 
ad exprimendum animi gaudium; de his, qui plura volet, 
legat preclarum tractatum Elpidii Berretarii Priscensis 
de risu. | 

“Ad risum proclives maxime sanguinei et cholerici 
quia calidiores sunt et apud Greecos risus dicitur yéAws ab 
éXy, id est calor.” 

Niquetius disputes the ancient opinion according to 
which the spleen is the cause of laughter, an opinion which 
arose spontaneously from the pain felt in the spleen after 
excessive laughter, or perhaps imagined as a pendent to the 
theory which makes the liver the seat of pain— 

* Cor sapit et pulmo loquitur, fel commovet tram. 

“ Shlen ridere facit, cogit amare jecur.” 

And elsewhere— 

“ Quid faciem? Sed sum petulanti splene cachinno.” — 

Having exhausted his small store of physiology, Niquetius 
does as others do and falls back upon pure cabalism— 

*¢ Pueri, mulieres, fatui ac quilibet inexperti facile rident 
quia illis omnia nova ac novitas risum facit. Tyrinthii, 
quum ¢AoyAwres essent, et hoc nomine a vicinis male 
audirent, Delphicum oraculum consuluerunt respondit 
Pythia ita tandem eos hoc malo liberandos, si Neptua 
taurum immolarent et cum ayéAacros in mare projicerent ; 


1 Honoratt Niquetii e Societete Jesu, Sacerdotis, Theologi Phystog- 
nomia humana. Libri iv. distincta, editio prima. Lugduni, 1648. 


_ 


THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 107 


illi, re deliberata, pueros omnes hoc sacrificio abegerunt 
ne quod esset ridendi periculum. . . .” 

A little-known Spanish writer! had launched his shafts 
against the excessive laughers before Ghiradelli and before 
Niquetius— 

*'Those who laugh easily and in great bursts have large 
spleens, and are naturally foolish, vain, stupid, inconstant, 
and indiscreet. 

“Those who laugh little and with moderation are 
prudent, astute, discreet, loyal, constant, and of brilliant 
intelligence.” 

I will not cite Cicero, who said in his Zusculanes—?* 

“+ Sz ridere concessum est, vituperatur tamen cachinnatio.” 

Catullus had also said more severely— ; 

“Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.” 

But earlier than the philosopher and the poet, Ecclesi- 
asticus had proclaimed— 

“ Fatuus in rien exaltat vocem suam, sapiens aulem vix 
tacite ridebit.” 

And in Proverbs— 

-“ Risus abundat in ore stultorem.” 

To all these wiseacres and proverb-makers I should like 
to present our contemporaries Vogt and Pasquale Villari: 
the former is fat, the latter is thin ; both are men of genius; 
both laugh continually and heartily. Vogt, who has two 
enormous lungs above the diaphragm, and an enormous 
stomach below, laughs till he shakes. the house and 
endangers its solidity. In this he reminds us of Balzac, 
who, like him, had a big stomach, and whose laughter 
shook the window panes. 

The astrological and divination tendency has been per- 
petuated into our own days. If you open at hazard the 


1 Hieronymo Cortes, natural de la cuidad da Valencia, Phisonomia y 
varios secretos de naturaleza. Barcelona, 1610. 

2 Tusculan, lib. iv. See also Clement of Alexandria, Pedagogia, 
lib. ii., cap. v. 


108 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


first volume to hand of a common physiognomist—for 
example, Lepelletier—you will find statements of this sort— 

“ Noisy and prolonged laughter.—. . . Having made a 
sufficient number of careful observations, we shall not 
hesitate to acknowledge that this sort of laughter, if we 
suppose it to be natural, indicates the following moral 
conditions: The most ordinary intelligence; a light, 
futile, heedless, versatile, jovial mind, with little inclina- 
tion for the serious; a simple, ignorantly wondering 
character, sometimes utterly stupid (poor Balzac!), com- 
mon, coarse, ill-taught, without reserve, without dignity 
(poor Vogt!), attracting attention everywhere, and no- 
where appreciated; intemperate, sensual, greedy, nearly 
always led away by the more or less vicious impulses of 
instinct, rarely subject to the wise promptings of reason 
(poor Villari !).” 

Enough. The true physiology of laughter begins with 
the great naturalists and great biologists of our own time. 

Among them the first place belongs to Darwin, who 
has investigated the first forms—the dawnings of laughter 
in the animals which most resemble ourselves. 

The chimpanzee is sensitive to tickling; under this 
stimulus his eyes become brilliant, the corners of his mouth 
are drawn backwards, his lower eyelids slightly wrinkled ; 
and at the same time he emits a sound which corresponds 
to our laughter. Tickling produces the same effect in 
the orang-outang. Duchenne several times observed a 
sort of smile in an ape when he offered him a tempting 
morsel. The Cebus Azare, when he is pleased, emits a 
peculiar murmur, and the corners of his mouth are con- 
tracted backwards. An analogous expression has been 
observed in the Cebus hypoleucus, and in the Jnuus 
ecaudatus. Darwin has also observed the expression of 
pleasure in two or three species of JV/acacus and the 
Cynoptiihecus niger. ‘The former throw back their ears and 
emit a peculiar sound; the Cynopithecus draws backwards 


THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 109 
and upwards the corners of the mouth and all the skin 
of the head in such a way that at the same time the eye- 
brows are raised. And in this movement he shows his teeth. 

I have also seen the ouistitis of Brazil, which I have had 
with me for several months, express their joy by throwing 
their ears backwards and raising the corners of the mouth. 

Such are the rude beginnings of the human expression 
of joy. The expression of this is very rich, and we will 
decompose it into its elements according to the method 
which we have already adopted for pain. 


SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE EXPRESSION OF 
PLEASURE. 
Elevation of the corners of the mouth (smiling). 
Wrinkling of the lower eyelids and of the neighbour- 
hood of the eye. 


Muscular Con- | Inflation of the cheeks. 
tractions =f | HiJatation of the wings of the nose. 
the face and 7 au ghing. 
Bement Oly Closing the eyes. 
= Throwing back the eyeball. 
Grinding of the teeth. 
Trismus. 
Rhythmic movements of the neck. 
Elevation of the shoulders. 
Muscular con- | Diverse contortions of the trunk. 
tractions of] Diverse expressive movements of the arms. 


the neck, the 
trunk, and the 
limbs. Con- 
vulsions, 


Vasomotor and 


sensitive phe- 
nomena. 


Clapping with the palms of the hands. 
Stretching the legs apart. 

Stamping with the feet. 

Various sorts of springs. 

Dancing. 

Convulsions of an epileptic nature. 


Blushing of the face, and more rarely of the whole 
body. 

Pallor (rare). 

Sparkling of the eyes. 

Tears, 

More abundant salivation. 

Involuntary emission of urine. 


TIO PHYSIOGNOMY. 


Sighs. 
Rattle. 
Cries. 
Disturbance of | Noise similar to that of snoring. 

the voice and } Sobs. 

psychical phe- | Singing. 

nomena. Dumbness. 
Fluent and unaccustomed eloquence. 
Delirium. 
Unaccustomed benevolence. 


Paralysis of some or of all the muscles of the eye. 
Phenomena _ of } Strabismus. 
paralysis, Fall of the lower jaw. 
Swooning and syncope. 


If instead of an essay I were writing a treatise on physiog- 
nomy and on the expression of the emotions, I should have 
to study all these elements expressive of pleasure one by 
one, elements which in reality may be seen either isolated 
or grouped together in diverse ways. I shall content my- 
self here with a rapid examination of the most common and 
most characteristic. 

The first of all is the raising of the corners of the mouth, 
always accompanied by certain wrinkles round the eye and 
an inflation of the parts of the cheeks nearest to the nose. 
These three movements combined constitute the smile, 
which may be hardly perceptible, and which passes by insen- 
sible degrees into laughter. This mechanism, characteristic 
of pleasure, may be studied by following the development 
of a tactile sensation which approaches the voluptuous. 
Scarcely is pleasure manifested than the elevator muscles of 
the upper lip irresistibly contract and the smile appears. 
The rough artists of the most savage peoples have observed 
this. I possess two Maori idols which express the two 
fundamental images of pleasure and pain. I should have 
reproduced them in this book had not two large fig-leaves 
been necessary to conceal certain details of these coarse 
wooden statues. In the one representing pleasure, the 


THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 111% 


corners of the mouth are raised; in that representing pain, 
they are, on the contrary, drawn downwards. As soon as the 
smile is accentuated, and the large zygomatic muscles 
strongly contracted, wrinkles are formed round the lower 
eyelid. In adults and old people they also form at the 
outer corner of the eye. At the same time the eyebrows 
are somewhat depressed, which proves that the upper part 
of the orbicular muscles contracts as well as the lower. 
When the smile is very marked, and still more when one 
laughs, the cheeks and the upper lip are inflated, the nose 
seems to get smaller or, rather, shorter, the upper incisors 
are shown, and at the same time a naso-labial wrinkle forms 
which passes from the wings of the nose to the corner of 
the mouth. In adults and old people this wrinkle is 
double. 

In very marked smiling, and still more in laughing, the 
eye becomes brilliant, because the lachrymal secretion is 
more abundant, and it appears larger, perhaps because it is 
expanded by the contraction of the orbicular muscle, per- 
haps (as Piderit admits) because the eyeball contains more 
blood and other humours. 

In addition to these phenomena a feature of laughter is 
the deep inspiration, followed by a frequently interrupted 
expiration and accompanied by a peculiar and characteristic 
noise. This is always an accompanying phenomenon of the 
diffusion of any expression which passes from an inner 
muscular centre to an outer concentric circle. As the 
pleasure increases, and with it the emotion is augmented, 
the muscles of the face no longer suffice for its expression : 
the diaphragm and the respiratory muscles of the thorax 
come to their aid. 

In laughter, the mouth opens more and more, many of 
the teeth are exposed, until, the emotion always increasing, 
the muscles of the limbs and of the trunk take part in the 
performance, as much to discharge the centrifugal current 
which is developed as to protect the viscera of the belly, 


112 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


which are too violently tossed about by the rapid and 
energetic contractions of the diaphragm. It is then that 
the head is thrown back, afterwards the trunk; that the face 
and neck get red, that the veins swell, that the eyes are 
flooded with tears which even flow over the cheeks. At 
the same time the hands are carried to the side of the 
chests, over the epigastrium or other parts of the belly; 
sometimes one may rest the whole abdomen against a wall 
or against any resisting body, or may roll on the ground. 

Laughter, which in its initial stages is pleasant, may 
become so violent, if prolonged, that it constitutes a veritable 
convulsion impossible to dominate even by an effort of 
the will. It is then that great pain may be felt at the 
nape of the neck, and unpleasant sensations in the belly 
and at the diaphragm, and that there may be a loss of 
urine ; the latter is more frequent with children and with 
women. . 

Darwin was able to verify that this laughter to the point 
of tears is found among Hindus, Malays, the Dyaks of 
Borneo, Australians, Kaffirs, Abyssinians, and among the 
Aborigines of North America. For my part, I have seen 
it in many negroes of different tribes, and in the Indians of 
South America. 

The great English philosopher asked himself whether 
laughter was an exaggeration of the smile, or if the latter 
was the last vestige of an ancient hereditary habit—that 
of laughing boisterously. I think it probable that both 
laughter and smiling are as ancient as man, and that 
either is produced according to the degree of the emotion. 
We have a proof of this in the fact that children smile 
before they laugh. In my five children the first smile 
appeared forty or sixty days after birth, while laughter 
was manifested, at the earliest, in the third month. One 
of the sons of Darwin smiled at the 45th day, and 
laughed at the 113th. Another of his sons smiled at the 
same age, and a third some days earlier. 


THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 113 


Laughter is the most characteristic expression of the 
pleasure of ridicule; but it also accompanies tickling and 
pleasures which are affecting in their acute stage. Volup- 
tuousness only very rarely provokes laughter, and only in 
its paroxysms ; then it is but a spasmodic or cynical laughter, 
accompanied by a sort of rattle or gnashing of the teeth. 

Children and women laugh more than men and adults, 
because they are more excitable, and the moderating power 
of the cerebral hemispheres is less. When in perfect health 
we laugh at a trifle; when in ill-health or bad humour 
nothing can succeed in calling forth a laugh. Laughter is 
_ frequent in idiots and in certain special forms of mental 
alienation. If we add to this that many people, devoting 
their life to profound study, or to the search after an 
elevated ideal, are necessarily serious, we shall see the 
reason, or rather the excuse, of the proverb according to 
which Azsus abundat in ore stultorum. 

We have already seen that certain great men laugh 
readily and noisily; but it is right to add that laughter 
corresponds more closely to the moral character, and to the 
condition of health, than to the degree of intelligence. The 
haughty, the vain, the awkward laugh little so that they may 
not compromise their personal dignity. I think that the 
serious character of the Spanish nation depends on this, Also 
the envious, the wicked, the malevolent rarely laugh, because 
they are impregnated with bile, and are always morose. To 

think, to do, to remember evil, such is the daily occupation 
of those unfortunate beings who are always constrained to 
hate and to censure. And all this is the very opposite of 
laughing. 

Laughter, easy, copious, and frank, indicates a good soul 
- devoid of vanity. This is one of the least misleading axioms 
of physiology. The hypocritical education of our age 
teaches us to restrain the expansion both of grief and of 
joy, and we grow unaccustomed to open-hearted laughter. 
Add to that that many ae laugh little lest they should 


114 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


have precocious wrinkles, while others laugh too much, and 
on every pretext, that they may show their beautiful teeth. 

Cynical, strident laughter may sometimes be the 
expression of hatred or intolerable suffering; but it should 
never be confounded with joyous laughter. The sound 
may be the same; the diaphragm and the thoracic muscles 
present the same contractions; but the face has quite a 
different expression, and we stand aghast before a picture 
which combines the least harmonious colours and the 
most horrible grimaces. Thus the famous “laughter of the 
damned” is one of the battle-horses of theologians and 
preachers. It is an expression taken from nature. 

Laughter and smiling are very expansive forms of 
expression. The character of expansion is truly one of 
the most general characters of all agreeable manifestations. 
This is so true that the oldest observers, even the most 
superficial, were compelled to notice it. 

Ghiradelli says that pleasure extends even to oysters and 
to sponges . . . “to zoophytes and animate plants, like the 
oysters and sponges, which contract as an effect of pain, and 
which dilate with joy to the point of opening.” And 
Niquetius, in his first description of laughter, writes— 
“Voluptatis primus et maxime proprius effectus est dilatatio 
cordis sanguine et spiritu ad exteriores partes copiose effuso, 
unde et nonnullos gaudio, propter nimiam spirituum jac- 
turam, mortuos esse legimus. . . .” 

The first movement of pleasure is expansive, centrifugal ; 
the first movement of pain is centripetal, as though one 
entered into oneself. 

Joy makes us hurry from the house, pain makes us enter 
it; joy makes us open the window, pain makes us close it. 
Joyous, we seek light, movement, noise, men; unhappy, we 
want darkness, rest, silence, solitude. It is a general law 
which admits of exceptions, like all others ; but these excep- 
tions are easily explained by the action of disturbing causes. 
It is a law which governs individuals and societies, and 





THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 115 


which should inspire art. Stand at the window: look at 
this group of men, women, and children who gather round 
something which you cannot see. ‘They are silent, motion- 
less ; for a catastrophe has occurred; they are looking at 
the corpse of a man who has committed suicide. Another 
time, at the same window, you see a tumult, people who 
are shouting and dancing: all is movement, all is uproar; . 
for it is a holiday, and joy is carrying them all away in a 
tumultuous storm of.muscular expansion. 

I have studied in my children the effect of a sudden joy. 
After the momentary immobility caused by surprise, they 
laugh and at the same time stamp their feet in cadence, 
clap their hands, jump, dance, although they may never 
have witnessed a like expression in any living being, 

Look at a child who has just been given a new and desired 
plaything ; he will jump first on one foot, then on the other; 
he claps his hands in cadence. This beautiful picture of 
infantine joy reveals to us one of the first sources of music, 
perhaps one of the most wonderful creations of the human 
brain. Pleasure has engendered music, music by a marvel- 
lous reaction gives birth to pleasure, and this in its turn 
expresses itself in rhythmic muscular movements, which are 
the alphabet of dancing. From the cadenced beating of the 
feet and hands to the invention of the tambour, the 
tambourine, and the cymbal, there is but one step. The 
savage but rhythmic noise revives joy and creates music, 
which in its pathological forms brings us back to a savage 
noise. Darwin having asked a child less than four years 
old what it understood by good humour, the child replied, 
“Tt means laughing, talking, and kissing,” thus revealing to 
us in its naive reply a chapter of psychology. 

In the explosion of joy the affective sympathies awaken 
by their influence the most excitable parts of our brain, 
those where the condensed energy is always ready to find 
vent in expression. Thus Petherick said the negroes on 
the Upper Nile rub their stomachs as they looked at certain 


116 PH YSIOGNOM Y. 


coveted glass wares; and Leichardt said the Australians 
alternately open and close their mouths, as though they 
were enjoying the flavour, as they admired his horse, bulls, 
and especially his dogs. Thus it is that the Greenlanders 
gulp in the air when they are pleased, as though they were 
swallowing a delicious’ morsel. To these facts I shall add 
others which confirm this law in different domains. 
Libertines, to express any pleasure, lick their lips, caress 


their cheeks, or have recourse to some other sexual - 


expression ; and people passionately fond of music give a 
harmonious expression to every joy. 

Among the elements of the expression of pleasure 
enumerated in our analytical table, some are characteristic 
of sexual voluptuousness. I will mention among these the 
turning upwards of the eyeball, so as to hide the cornea, 
the gnashing of the teeth, trismus, epileptiform convulsions, 


sighs, rattle, groans, bellowings, sobs, and such like ; these 


phenomena are among the more bestial—that is to say, the 
more automatic and irresistible—and education exercises on 
them but little or no influence. Here the intelligent man is 
completely submerged in the great sea of the animal 
fraternity : the horse, the ass, the man have often the same 
way of expressing erotic enthusiasm. 

The different movements expressive of pleasure may be 
grouped in such a way as to form pictures characteristic of 
certain emotions or special conditions of our organism. 

I shall mention here some of the most known and the 
best defined, that they may serve to guide the artist and 
the psychologist. 

Physiognomy of Good Humour.—When health is perfect, 
when no care troubles our serenity, to feel oneself living 
is a pleasure in itself. This pleasure is expressed by an 
expansive smile; by a permanent tonicity of the muscles 
of the face and slight brightness of the eyes. It is the 


face of children in good health; it is the joyous expres- — 


sion of a brave man who is well. Before such beautiful 


i 


THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE, 117 


representations of life we cry—What a laughing face! 
What a picture of contentment! It is a pleasure to look 
upon it! 

Physiognomy of Tumultuous, Delirious, Mad Joy.—This 
is seen in sudden and violent joy, especially when the mind 
is not prepared for it. The emotion spreads tumultuously 
and rapidly from one circle of expression to another. 
Smiling and laughing, convulsions and cries, song and 
dancing scarcely suffice to provide for the letting off of 
the continuous and vigorous currents which rise from the 
nerve-centres. An almost constant character of this 
expression is to transform the affective energy into acts ; 
there is felt an irresistible necessity to embrace, to kiss what- 
ever is near, whether it be an animal or inanimate object. 
The artist must never forget the force of expression which 
accompanies muscular disturbance in representing human joy. 

Physiognomy of Satisfied Pride-—When man rises in the 
scale of rank, whether by his money-bags or in a vanity- 
inflated balloon, he experiences an intense and continuous 
joy which impresses a permanent and very characteristic 
expression on his physiognomy. Just as a cat bristles up 
her fur and inflates herself to appear larger and to frighten 
a dog who threatens her, so a man, full of pride, satisfied 
at the rank in which his eye finds itself, inflates his cheeks, 
breathes frequently and powerfully, sticks out his paunch, 
if he has one, the anterior part of the abdomen if he is thin, 
holds up his head, walks noisily—in a word, he seeks 
to appropriate as many of the sun’s rays as he can, and 
to attract in every fashion the attention of his inferiors. 
It is not without reason that in every language inflated 
signifies proud, and to inflate oneself, to grow proud. 

A Joyous, Epicurean, Bacchic Phystognomy.—This is the 
exaggeration of good humour, with a strong tinge of sen- 
suality, brute stupidity, and libertinism. 

All gradations are possible, from the lowest expression 
of gluttony to the higher and universal epicureanism. A 


118 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


gleaming and warm skin; a half-closed mouth, always 
expectant of light kisses or savoury morsels; half-opened 
and slightly troubled eyes, looking into space as though for 
ever contemplating smoking stew-pans and tender viands ; 
the heavy murmur of a turgid blood below a satisfied and 
still more turgid stomach ; the beatitude of a naked Silenus 
borne on the shoulders of naked Bacchantes ; the tempes- 
tuous bubbling of a painful digestion ; a peaceful sloth of 
ideas ; perpetual desires of well-filled tables and well- 


warmed beds; a reverie of kisses and liquors; a bestial _ 


fermentation in the great vessel of human life. Such, 
broadly sketched, are the anatomical and expressive 
features which have inspired artists in their creations of 
Bacchus, Silenus, and certain Don Juans. 

Some of these pictures may represent permanent expres- 
sions: others only correspond to passing states. The 


expressions of tumultuous joy and of voluptuousness are ~ 


transient ; on the other hand, a bacchic expression, that of 
satisfied pride, and, above all, that of good humour, may be 
permanent. 

If an artist wished to portray in five large pictures the 
different periods of human life, represented by their most 
characteristic joys, the following lines might inspire and 
guide him :— j 

1. Lnfancy and Childhood.—Good humour, consciousness 
of perfect health. 

2. Adolescence.—Heedlessness, muscular intoxication. 

3. Youth.—Joys of love: contemplation of the world 
through rose-coloured glasses. 

4. Adult Age-—The pleasures of strife and of satisfied 
self-esteem. 

5. Old Age.—The tender joys of affection, and the 
melancholy of tender memories. 

While studying the expression of pleasure I have been 
able to note the same law which I had already noted in 
the expressions of pain. I have found that the pleasures of 


Oe i a 


— 
i 


4 





THE EXPRESSION OF PLEASURE. 119 


specific senses had an identical or analogous expression to 
those of other emotions from a different or higher origin. 

The specific pleasures of sight, as some of the more 
elevated joys of the intelligence, are expressed by widely- 
opened and brilliant eyes, by the head held upright and 
attentive. Study the attitude of any one contemplating a 
beautiful scene in nature, and you will recognise that it is 
like that of the poet who creates and of the philosopher 
who is seeking. 

Examine, on the other hand, the concentration of one 
who is enjoying good music. You will see that his expres- 
sion is in every way similar to that of the tenderest joys of 
the heart. Let a painter go into a theatre when Patti is 
singing, and the atmosphere vibrating with the sweetest 
accents of Donizetti or Bellini; let him watch in turn the 
faces of the audience, and he will find there pictures of 
wondrous beauty. 

The expression of the pleasures of taste is very coarse; 
but there is none the less its analogue in the expres- 
sion of the joy of wealth; perhaps because the mouth is 
the slot of our money-box, and receives the tribute of all 
our receipts, and because the tasting of a delicate morsel is 
very like the pleasure of fingering gold and bank-notes. 

The pleasures of smell have an expression almost iden- 
tical with that of voluptuousness ; doubtless because this 
sense and the genital organs are in close connection.! 
Make the chastest woman smell the flower whose odour she 
likes best, and note her expression. Without willing or 
knowing it, she will close her eyes and breathe deeply ; 
and if she is very sensible, she will tremble through her 
whole body. 

The passion of certain toothless old people for snuff is 
certainly a pleasure of smell. But this exception confirms 
the rule, for at the bottom of this gross expression there is 
always a sensual tinge which recalls forms of sexual pathology. 


1 Mantegazza, Fistologia dell’ amore, p. 176. 


120 PHYVSIOGNCM 2 


For the rest the pleasure of snuff is not only concerned 
' with smell, but also with touch, and includes a narcotic 
effect. 

. The pleasures of touch are confused with those of volup- 
tuousness, and constantly present an analogous expression. 
But they are nearly always complicated by a muscular 
exertion, which gives to these pleasures an expression 
identical with, or at least similar to, that of resistance, 
action, strife. 

For this reason artists would do well more frequently to 
visit the workshops of smiths, carpenters, turners, and all 
workmen who employ their hands in transforming and 
fashioning material. In these pictures of expression they 
will find abundant material for their highest inspirations. 

It is in the lower part of the face, and still more round 
the chin, that the expression of character and of action is 
concentrated. The play of this centre of expression follows 
in sympathy the intelligent and rhythmical movements of 
the carpenter, of the smith, of the turner. It is almost 
impossible to plane, to saw, to bore, without the face 
assuming an active expression of work and energy. Certain 
workmen who are very expansive or very nervous present 
sometimes, while in the performance of their 1nanual labour, 
heroical expressions which the artist would find again on 
battle-fields and in parliaments, if on these rare occasions, 
in these bloody combats or strife of words, it was possible 
to maintain that composure and the spirit of observation 
which, on the other hand, are very easily preserved in the 
workshop of a turner or of a smith.! 


1 Mantegazza, Fisiologia del piacere, p. 10. Milan. 





CHAPTER X. 
THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN. 


In my Physiology of Pain, published at Florence, and 
illustrated by an extensive atlas of photographs, I devoted 
the fourth part of the work to the study of the expressions 
indicative of pain. In these pages I collected the fruit of 
long and patient observations, and of many cruel experi- 
ences. Here I shall but broadly indicate the most im- 
portant conclusions, in order that these chapters on expression 
may not present a deplorable lacuna. When a man has con- 
secrated all his life to the study of man, he is obliged to 
touch upon the same subjects again in the different works 
which he publishes, and some repetitions are inevitable. 

The expressions of pain are extremely numerous: but 
they may be summed up in the following table :— 


SYNOPTICAL TABLE, 


Of the face. 

Of the trunk. 

Of the limbs. 

Of the cremaster. 

Of the elevators of the hairs. 
Partial 
General 
Tonic 
Clonic 
Trembling, 


Muscular contractions 


Convulsions. 


Of the limbs. 
Of all voluntary movements. 


Of certain muscles of the face. 
Paralyses. | 


122 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


Voluntary suspension of respiration. 
Involuntary Pr - 
Prolonged expiration. 
Interrupted expiration and inspiration. 
Respiratory troubles J Sighing. 
and sounds, Yawning. 
Complaining. 
Sobbing. 
Groaning. 
Cries, 


Tears, 

Involuntary loss of saliva. 
Involuntary emission of urine. 
Vomiting. 

Diarrhoea. 

Perspiration. 


Troubles of the secre- 
tions and of diges- 
tion. 


Paleness of the face. 
», of the whole body. 
Peripheral vasomotor | Blushing of the face. 
phenomena. Urticaria. 
Erythema. 
Erection. 


Unwonted benevolence. 
Access of passion and hatred. 
S », religious feeling. 


Psychical troubles. Dumbness. 
Voluble and unwonted eloquence. 


Delirium. 
Rhythm of thought and of word. 


It is seldom that these elementary forms of the expression 
of pain occur isolated in nature; they are nearly always 
combined in different ways, forming certain pictures which 
resemble each other more or less according to the nature of 
the suffering, and still more the character of the patient. 

Lixpressions of reaction. 

Lixpressions of paralysis. 

Mingled expressions of pain and of the feeling which has 
Produced or which accompanies tt. 


THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN. 123 


Expressions of Reaction.—These are the most common ; 
they accompany all slight pains, and the beginning of great 
pains. The centrifugal currents escape along the different 
nerves, and produce there an infinite number of move- 
ments: contractions of the facial muscles, agitation of the 
limbs and of the trunk, complaints, sighs, sobs, erection of 
the hair, threatenings to real beings either present or 
absent, or even to imaginary beings. 

All this complication of movements has a twofold object 
—to release the nerve centres from the excessive tension 
which afflicts them, and to struggle with the pain. 

Lxpressions of Paralysis—These are nearly always 
caused by over strong or protracted pains. Sometimes the 
suffering is so unexpected and so violent that it produces 
paralysis without reaction, and one may be suddenly 
smitten with swooning, syncope, and finally death. 

Outside these cases, which, happily, are exceptional, the 
prostration of grief is expressed by yawning, by paleness, 
by involuntary losses of saliva, of urine, of feeces, by the 
dejection of the face. 

Mingled Expressions of Pain and different Feelings.— 
The diversity of the effects which pain produces on the 
muscles of the human body comes generally less from the 
degree of this pain than from the feeling which produces 
or accompanies it. Thus, by the gestures of a man in 
pain, we rapidly guess whether he is suffering from a 
tooth or a corn; in the same way, paternal affection, self- 
esteem, and the feeling of propriety when wounded unite 
their own particular expression to the expression of pain. 

Muscular Contractions.—Disregarding the very rare cases 
in which a general paralysis is suddenly provoked by an 
excessive pain, the expression of pain may be said to be 
always accompanied by muscular contractions. ‘These may 
be limited to a small number of the muscles, or to several 
groups, or extend to all the voluntary muscles in such way 
as to simulate tetanus, or a general convulsion. 


124 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


Different circumstances may contribute to make one 
muscle contract rather than another, but that depends 
especially on the seat, on the nature, and on the degree of 
the pain, 

The muscles which serve most frequently to express 
suffering are those of the face, then those of the neck, of 
the trunk, of the upper limbs, and finally those of the lower. 

The most frequent contractions are those of the super- 
ciliary muscles, and of the depression of the lower lip; 
also the wrinkling of the brow and the depression of the 
mouth are among the most constant signs of the greater 
part of the expressions of pain. 

The contraction of the muscles used in mastication is 
also very habitual, and gives to the mouth a character 
of resolution and haughtiness. While the mouth closes 
with energy, the hand closes also, and in the gravest cases, 
both hands. 

Convulsions are oftenest seen as the expression of pain 
in the extreme paroxysm of moral suffering, and nearly 
always coincide with the complete collapse of patience, of 
dignity, and of many other virtues. Here are some forms — 
of these convulsions expressive of pain— 

The alternate raising and lowering of the lower j ai but 
without the teeth meeting. 

Spontaneous fibrillar contractions of many muscles of 
the lower limbs, of the arms, and also of the trunk. 

Partial convulsions of the muscles of half of the face, 
after which the mouth is left awry. 

Convulsions of the frontal and ocular muscles. 

Convulsion of the superficial muscle of the neck, and 
of the sterno-mastoids. 

Clonic convulsions of the abdominal muscles. 

Trismus. 

Different forms of tetanus. 

Hysterical projections of the limbs and trunk. 

Laralysis.—This always accompanies intense and pro- 


THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN. 125 


longed pains. It must be that in one way or another 
the nervous energy should be sufficiently exhausted to 
momentarily suspend the faculty of innervation. One of 
the simplest forms is an inability to close the mouth; one 
of the most complex and the gravest is the relaxation of all, 
or of nearly all, the muscles of the lower limbs and of those 
which keep the body straight. 

Lroubles of Respiration and Cries.—Respiration is one of 
the functions most deeply disturbed by the action of pain. 
As it is discharged by means of certain movements, the 
disturbances which it undergoes indirectly become the 
expression of our suffering. 

When the moderating influence of the cerebral hemispheres 
is at its maximum, we have: the voluntary arrest of respira- 
tion, the exaggeration of the act of inspiration, spasmodic 
contraction of the diaphragm, of the scalenes, of the 
external intercostals, of the sternal portion of the inter- 
nal intercostals, of the elevators of the sides, of the 
serratus posticus, of the sterno-mastoid, and, in the case of 
supreme struggling against pain, the energetic contraction of 
the elevator of the angle of the scapula, of the trapezium, 
of the little pectoral, of the great pectoral, and of the 
serratus magnus. 

When the moderating influence of the cerebral hemi- 
spheres is very weak, we have, on the contrary, a rapid, 
gasping respiration, tumultuous movements of the voluntary 
muscles, an exaggeration of the act of expiration, a spas- 
modic contraction of the internal intercostals, of the 
infracostals, of the triangular muscle of the sternum, and 
also, in the gravest cases, of the external oblique, of the 
internal oblique, of the transversalis and of the sacro- 
lumbar muscles. 

Sighs, Groans, Cries, Yawning.—The sigh is generally an 
element expressive of pain, even though it also accompanies 
some of the most vivid erotic or affective pleasures. But 
most frequently it interrupts from time to time long and 


126 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


dumb grief, and is a sign of moral, rather than of physical, 
suffering. 

The sigh has only to be raised a tone to become a groan, 
which generally accompanies, while prolonging, expiration. 

The groan may become a cry, but this cry is nearly 
always the automatic and spontaneous expression of very 
acute physical pains, or of intense and sudden moral 
pain. 

Yawning expresses the most different things, such as 
hunger, thirst, and, especially in women, the need of 
physical love; but in the expression of pain it is an element 
which is expressive of weariness. 

Weeping.—This is an element of the expression of pain 
which at once embraces the whole field of muscular disturb- 
ances, and invades that of the secretions. In fact, we find 
therein at once the contraction of several muscles of the 
face, of the thorax, of the belly, and an abundant secretion 
of tears, which, overflowing the lachrymal duct which should 
lead them into the nostrils, issue over the lower eyelid and 
flow down the cheeks. 

Darwin has studied with much tact the expressive 
mechanism of tears;+ he has remarked that in children 
tears are often preceded and accompanied by an intermit- 
tent and spasmodic occlusion of the eyelids, from which 
results a tolerably strong compression of the eye, which, 
according to him, effects its protection from excessive 
sanguine congestion. | 

Peripheral Vasomotor Phenomena.—The pallor of the 
face, and sometimes, but rarely, that of the whole body, 
accompanies sudden terrors, the announcement of great 
misfortunes, and also acute and rapid physical pains. 

Redness of the face always accompanies the weeping of 
the child ; but it is often also observed in youth and in the 
adult. 


1 Darwin, Zhe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 
p- 147. London, 1872. 


THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN. £27 


Men and women express their pains differently, even 
when they are of the same degree. The differences become 
greater in proportion as we rise in individual and ethnical 
rank. 

Generally grief is translated in women into stupor or 
violent reactions; tears are very frequent. The masculine 
temperament, more courageous and energetic, gives to a 
man’s expression of grief the character of resistance. The 
man who suffers protests against pain; he utters threats and 
imprecations on nature and on God. The closed fist 
stretched towards heaven is the virile expression of some 
very intense pains. In the woman, on the contrary, the 
compassionate form prevails, and the groan is the most 
habitual form of expression. 

In women the predominence of benevolent and religious 
feelings gives to the expression of pain the character of pity 
and of charity. In man, on the contrary, egoism prevails 
even in the domain of the passions. The woman who 
suffers, prays and performs acts of charity; the man most 
frequently blasphemes and menaces. 

Age, still more than sex, modifies the expression of pain. 
Little children only experience physical pains, which they 
always translate in the same way—by tears and cries. 

When self-love, jealousy, the love of property, have 
appeared in the child he becomes capable of experiencing 
more pains; he continues to express them by cries and 
by tears, but his tears flow in different ways, sometimes 
continuously, sometimes intermittently ; sometimes he only 
whines, sometimes he sobs. 

In proportion as the child grows its expression of grief 
acquires new characters; tears are less frequent and re- 
placed in part by sighs, sobs, groans, and cries. In the 
more intelligent, as the dawn of expressions of a more 
elevated order, we note the appearance of the sardonic 
or ironical laugh, or a melancholy sadness. ‘These forms, 
already very esihetic, become more and more refined in the 


128 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


period of adolescence and first youth, and attain during 
this time of life to supreme beauty. 

The young man weeps but very rarely; the mature man 
has ordinarily completely unlearnt the habit. But directly 
the nervous centres are weakened a tendency to tearfulness 
is noted in the eyes, which signifies the first steps in the 
descent of the parabola of life. 

Generally concentric, mute expressions with feeble re- 
action are proper to adult age, because then experience has 
rendered us less sensitive, or because self-esteem and the 
sense of our own dignity intervene to moderate the expres- 
sion of pain. Tears, without sobbing, without any visible 
trouble of respiration, are one of the most frequent pictures 
of intense grief in adult age. 

In old age, tears which flow readily, hoarse and plaintive 
lamentations, cowardly dejection, are the habitual expres- 
sions of pain, although growing egoism and the diminution 
of sensibility tend to balance the progress of weakness. 

If it were necessary to reduce to a few pictures the most 
characteristic expressions of grief at different ages, I should 
make the five principal types— 

1. Childhood.—Cries without tears, abundant weeping. 

2. Adolescence. —Calm and melancholy sadness. 

3. Youth.—Menacing reaction. 

4. Adult Age.—Expression of bitterness. 

5. Old Age.—Plaintive groans and tears. 

In attentively observing the expressions of pain of the 
different specific senses, one may discover a new law which 
explains many obscure facts of human expression and of 
the highest psychology. 

The specific pains of the senses take their form from 
the special nature of the offended organ; their expression 
shows the artifices of defence as well as the. other laws 
of sympathy which connect each sense with a given region 
of the brain, and, in consequence, of feeling and of thought. 

Too bright a light, a want of harmony in colours, directly 


THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN. 129 


offend the eye. We express this specific pain in the most 
natural way by closing the eyes, folding the eyelids tightly, 
and at the same time contracting the muscles which are 
in anatomical and physiological relations with the orbicular 
of the eyelids. This expression closely resembles that by 
which the intellectual pains of the most elevated nature 
are manifested, When we see an ugly statue, an ugly 
picture, it is not the retina which is directly offended, it 
is the still unknown cerebral centre whence esthetic energies 
emanate. As the pictures and statues are the first origin 
of the zsthetic pains, we express these by closing one 
eye, perhaps both, as though we were offended by too 
strong a light. The same thing happens when we see or 
when we hear a solemn foolery, unless by contrast it make 
us laugh.} 

Lt ts then a law that the expression of visual pain ts very 
analogous to that of intellectual pains, and that because the 
eye is the most intellectual sense, the most fertile source of 
tdeas, 

If we pass to the other specific senses, we see the same 
law verified. Hearing is the sense most intimately and 
closely associated with feeling ; thus the expression of the 
specific pain of hearing is identical with that of the most 
cruel wounding of our affections. In my Adlas of Pain 
I have caught the transient expression of the sudden 
suffering of a very sensitive young man, caused by the 
scratching, which he suddenly perceived, of my ten nails 
against the window pane. 

Lt is then proved that the specific expression of auditory 
pain agrees with those of the benevolent feelings, or, as tt ts 
termed in ordinary language, of the affections. 

The analogy between the expression of pains of the 
senses and of moral pains becomes still more evident 
when we study the expression of the nose. 

Under the impression of a very ill odour the nostrils 


1 Mantegazza, Adlante dell espressione del dolore. 


9 


130 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


close, the lower lip is raised, and we involuntarily per- 
form certain movements of the face which all tend to 
prevent the introduction of air and consequently of the 
stench into our nostrils. This expression is in every way 
similar to that which translates our feelings of disdain and 
contempt for a vile thing or for an infamous man. When 
the feeling of our dignity is offended by a dishonourable 
proposition, when, for any cause, we experience a feeling 
of moral repulsion, we always close the nostrils, we always 
raise the upper lip in such a way as sometimes to produce 
a sardonic smile. 

The expression of olfactory pains has then many analogies 
with that of contempt and offended dignity. 

The study of the dumb pains of self-esteem has given me 
the opportunity of first finding the laws of analogy of 
expression which I proceed to lay down. When we offend 
the self-love of a man, and the latter, by reason of his 
social situation, or by weakness of character, cannot 
retaliate, still if he desires to show us that our injuries do 
not touch him, immediately and involuntarily the muscles 
of his face will grow motionless almost to the point of 
preventing any play of expression at all, and reaching a 
sort of static contraction. The movement is quick as 
lightning ; it may escape a superficial observer; but it is 
very characteristic and almost identical in all men. This 
static contraction and this forced immobility of the face 
entails an accumulation of saliva in the mouth; and at the 
end of some minutes the offended individual is forced to ; 
swallow it.1 . 

We may then thus formulate a fourth law: the expression a 
of gustatory pain, and especially that produced by a bitter 4 


9 3 
—) a i ee ere 


= 
ea 





taste, ts similar to that of the dumb anguish of self-esteem. 

The expression of personal feelings is concentric and —S 
centripetal; that of benevolent affections is excentric and 
centrifugal. We shall see this better later when studying the 


1 Darwin, Zhe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. 


THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN. 13t 


expression of passion; but for the present it is necessary 
to affirm the principle which also applies to the expression 
of pains emanating from the same source. 

A very characteristic expression is that of fear, which is 
for us nothing but the pazz of the love of life. Just as the 
centrifugal energies liberated by this sentiment are gigantic, 
so the pains derived from them take one of the most 
eloquent forms of expression. 

The physiognomy of fear, as of every egotistical affective 
energy, is very concentric. ‘The skin becomes white and 
cold, and, later, damp with sweat; the heart beats violently 
and irregularly, then becomes slow; respiration is laboured, 
the hair stands erect as under the influence of cold. If fear 
increases until it becomes terror, the sides of the nostrils 
dilate ; the eyes open disproportionately, and contemplate 
the object which causes us so much fear; they may even 
‘be unconsciously turned and move convulsively from side 
to side. The muscles of the face are convulsed; the. 
whole body may oscillate like a pendulum and present 
spasmodic movements of different nature; finally, muscular 
paralysis gives to the body the aspect of a corpse or of 
imminent syncope ; and the bowels, relaxing, allow all they 
contain to escape. 

The expression of the pains of the intellect is the most 
difficult to study, perhaps because of their little expansive- 
ness, perhaps because they are always complicated with that 
of other sufferings, notably with those of self-esteem. 

The painful expression of thought beyond the closing or 
the spasmodic contraction of the eye, which we have already 
noted, is always confined to the head, which is the principal 
and natural seat of this sort of suffering. The head 
oscillates from side to side, the brow wrinkles, we strike our 
heads with our hands. Sometimes with a single finger one 
hammers at a certain point of the forehead with repeated 
blows, just as one shakes a pendulum when it has stopped 
to try to put it into motion again. At other times the 


132 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


head is scratched, or, covering the face with widely opened 
palms, we plunge into a long and painful meditation. 
And in many cases we have in addition the sardonic 
laughter which is so frequently an accompaniment of noble 
and elevated pains. 

When a painful expression is often repeated on the same 
face for days, months, years, the muscles acquire a per- 
manent fold, and the skin which follows all their movements 
is furrowed by wrinkles which will never be effaced. If to 
these facts which concern the functions of the voluntary and 
involuntary muscles we add other facts relative to nutrition 
or to the vascular system, such as pallor, a leaden hue, 
wasting, the redness of the eyes, and others of like sort, 
we shall have certain well-known pictures which we may 
indicate by the terms, a sad face, a melancholy, a painful, 
an anguished face, etc. 

There are as many permanent expressions of pains to be 
counted as there are physical and moral sufferings for man ; 
but they may all be reduced to the following types, which 
are the most frequent and the most characteristic :— 


Permanent expression of nutritive pain. 


be) ” genital ” 

» a physical ,, 

» 59 the pain of self-esteem. 
» » affective pain. 

2 » weariness. 

» » melancholy. 

» 9 mania. 

» > hypochondria. 


The human face may express several emotions at the 
same time or at short intervals, so that the last traces of 
one expression may be confused with the first of another 
expression which is beginning. ‘These scenes are the most 
difficult for the physiologist to study, the most arduous for 
the artist to represent. . 

By artificially decomposing these binary and ternary 


THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN. 133 


combinations of expression they may be reduced to the 
following :— 


Painful expression accompanied by love, 
hatred, 


” 39 99 


In nearly all the pains of affection love manifests itself 
simultaneously with the intensity of the suffering. When 
we have the person loved before us, or his corpse, or his 
portrait, or even when we only see it in imagination, the 
expression of love may alternate with that of pain, be 
confounded with it, or even dominate. Well for us that 
artists have known how to avail themselves of this precious 
resource of the beautiful and have thereby created, and 
moved us by, incomparable works of art.} 


1 For a complete monograph see my Physiology of Pain, p. 227, 
et Séq. 


CHAPTER XI. 
EXPRESSION OF LOVE AND OF BENEVOLENCE. 


Just as pleasure and pain are the two poles of the world 
of sensibility, so love and hatred are the two poles of 
the world of passion. Thus we must direct our investiga- 
tions to these points of departure if we wish to make a 
scientific study of expression. 

As soon as an energy of affection has arisen within us, 
it tends to draw us to the loved object, whether this be 
a graceful animal or a beautiful woman, whether it be the 
fruit of our bodies or the elect of our hearts. This 
tendency dominates the whole life of the affections and 
all its expressions. It manifests itself with the first move- 
ment which makes us turn our heads towards the beloved 
object, and may culminate in the ardent embraces which 
sanctify the union of two existences, and create from them 
anew one. From the point of departure to that of attain- 
ment the way is long, even though it may be traversed in 
the twinkling of an eye on the wings of passion ; but in 
every case the expression of benevolence is modelled on 
this fundamental principle—/o draw near to that which we 
love. 

At the moment of this drawing near we always manifest 
a feeling of pleasure which has many different significations, 
but all may be reduced to this principal point—an exhibition 
of joy at being united to that which one loves, and the 
desire to be loved in return. There, if I am not deceived, 
is the elementary analysis of the simplest expressions of 
affection, as of the most complex—drawing near, and 
pleasure full of desire. ‘These are the positive characters of 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 135 


amorous expression ; the negative characters consist in the 
complete absence of all expression of hatred, rage, threaten- 
ing. It isa language which may be mute, which may be 
accompanied by some slight movements, but which every 
man understands at the first sight. Go and question any 
beautiful woman who has been for some minutes in a room 
surrounded by men who are watching her. She can at 
once whisper to you which is the one who loves her, and 
he who remains indifferent, he who desires her out of 
caprice, and he who has suddenly fallen desperately in love. 
And if there are many desires and many loves, she will 
determine the degree and nature of each. 

The secondary elements of expression which are grouped 
round these two principles are very numerous ; the table 
of them will be found further on. It is right, however, to 
pause over several, either because they have been little 
studied, or because they allow us to penetrate more 
deeply into the mechanism of the expression of affection. 
Affection is an essentially centrifugal force; it tends to 
pour, so to say, a part of ourselves into the person 
loved. Our ego issues almost entirely from itself to enter 
into another, and assimilate itself to another human nature. 
Thence is born an imitative sympathy, which compels us to 
follow with an irresistible expression the emotions which are 
depicted on the face of him who has awakened love in us. 

This imitative sympathy is common to all sociable 
animals. It has been touched in passing, but with the 
hand of a master, by Lavater in his chapter, Ox ‘he 
reciprocal influence of faces on each other. See with what 
delicate subtilty he speaks upon it— 

“It happens to all to acquire the habits, the gestures, 
the face of those that they see familiarly. We assimilate 
ourselves in some degree to all that we love; and of two 
things one: either it is the loved object which models 
us to himself, or it is we who seek to model him to 
us. All that is without us acts upon us, and suffers some 


136 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


reciprocal action from our side; but nothing reacts upon 
our individuality so efficaciously as that which pleases us, 
and nothing indubitably is more lovable or more fitted 
to move us than the face of man. That which makes it 
lovable to us is precisely its harmony with our own. 
Would it be able to influence and attract us if points of 
attraction did not exist which determine the conformity, or 
at least the homogeneity of its forms or its features with our 
own? I shall not essay to penetrate the profoundness 
of this incomprehensible mystery. I do not pretend to 
resolve the difficulty of the ow, but the fact is certain, 
there are faces which attract as there are others which 
repel; the conformity of features between two individuals 
who sympathise together, who are often together, corre- 
sponds with the development of their particular sensations. 
Our visage keeps, if we may thus express it, the reflection 
of the loved object.” 

Further on this ardent friend of men gives portraits of 
husband and wife to illustrate his theory of sympathy. 
The husband became hypochondriacally changed in face, 
and presented all the characters of profound desolation, 
and of a persistent disgust to all food. The wife, who 
adored him, and who followed from minute to minute the 
sad transformation of this cherished face, became-little by 
little hypochondriacal herself, and her face assumed an 
expression similar to that of her husband. They both 
recovered, and reacquired their habitual expressions. 

Lavater too was right when he religiously ended his - 
chapter by very aptly quoting two beautiful passages from 
the Bible— 

“ But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from 
glory to glory” (2 Cor. iii. 18). “We shall be like him; 
for we shall see him as he is” (1 John iii. 2). 

Not only does the face of a living man awaken in us 
a great imitative sympathy, but it is the same thing with 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 137 


a portrait when it is speaking and animated. Frederick the 
Great had always a bust of Julius Cesar on his bureau. 
I have seen this bust, and it made a deep impression on 
me, to such an extent does genius still, after so many 
centuries, shine forth from this mute marble. The King 
of Prussia said that Cesar inspired him to great things. 
Nor to be subject to such influences must one necessarily 
be a great man; it is enough to be man. From my youth 
up I have always had a beautiful engraving of Raphael 
Mengs’s portrait of himself hung before my eyes, precisely 
because this noble and inspired face always raised me 
into the region of the ideal, and excited me to intellectual 
work. 

Imitative sympathy, which is one of the simplest pheno- 
mena of the reflex life of the senses, speaks with a lively 
eloquence in the expression of love; but it is complicated 
with elements of a superior order. 

The simple elementary fact is manifested when by pre- 
tending to cry we make a child who is fond of us cry too, 
without knowing why and how we suffer. 

A more complex act is that of kneeling to kiss the 
feet of a beloved person, as though one would reduce 
one’s ego to a minimum, and render it dependent on a 
part of the beloved. I believe that this desire to merge 
oneself into another, to abase oneself, to aggrandise the 
beloved, passes beyond the narrow horizon of expression 
to embrace a larger field and the wider horizon of thought. 
We see it in the use of diminutives which lovers and 
sometimes friends use towards each other, and which 
mothers use to their children; we lessen ourselves thus 
in a delicate and generous manner in order that we may 
be embraced and absorbed in the circle of the creature 
we love. Nothing is more easily possessed than a small 
object, and before the one we love we would change our- 
selves into a bird, a canary—into any minute thing that we 
might be held utterly in the hands, that we might feel 


138 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


ourselves pressed on all sides by the warm and loving 
fingers. There .is also another secret reason for the use 
of diminutives. Little creatures are loved tenderly, and 
tenderness is the supreme sign of every great force which 
is dissolved and consumes itself. After the wild, passionate, 
impetuous embrace there is always the tender note, and 
then diminutives, whether they belong to expression or to 
language, always play a great part. 

After having examined the most striking general char- 
acters of the expression of affection, let us decompose them 
analytically. 


SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE EXPRESSION OF 


BENEVOLENCE, 
Movements of the eyes. 
Elementary ap- 3 > Slips 
proximating =~ 90 waleads 
movements, be ¥5:) = DOC: 
3 +s Ceprene: 


Caressing with the hand, 
Kissing. 

Caressing with the nose. 
Caressing with the tongue. 
Clasping of hands. 
Different embraces. 


Contacts. 


Smiling. 
Laughter. 
Tears. 
Side to side movements of the neck. 
Different sym-]_, Kneeling. 
pathetic phe- f eles rae Throwing oneself on the ground. 
nomena. ays ae Throwing oneself at the feet of the 
mission. 
beloved, 


Monotonous repetition of sounds and syllables with- 
out meaning. 
Songs and musical notes. 


Many of these elements of expression are also observed 
in animals. Darwin has described the loving cajoleries 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 139 


of cats and dogs for their masters, and every one may 
have made the same observations from nature. In my 
Physiology of Love I have described some scenes from 
animal life where the two essential elements of the 
expression of affection, drawing near to and pleasure, are 
predominant. As long as I live I shall never see anything 
equal to the amorous enticements of two snails, who, having 
in turn launched their little stone darts (as in prehistoric 
times), caress and embrace each other with a grace and 
voluptuousness that might arouse the envy of the most 
refined epicurean. 

The expression of affection begins with the tendency 
to approximation ; it ends in the ee of bodies, or of 
some parts of the body. 

It is in the instinctive choice of the parts to be put in 
contact that are revealed the different forms of affection, 
from the holiest veneration to the most sensual desire. 
Every nation of the earth has sought the contact of the 
most mobile and sensitive parts. It is because of this 
that the great centres of the expression of love are the 
hand and the mouth. The unanimity is, however, most 
complete for the hand, as it appears that there are people 
who never kiss. I mention on the authority of Darwin, 
and of some others, the Fuegians, the Maoris, the Tahitians, 
the Papuans, the Australians, the Somalis of Africa, as 
well as the Esquimaux and Japanese of former times. 

I shall always remember a long discussion which I had 
with a noble and intelligent painter of Java, Raden-Saleh. 
He told me that, like all Malays, he considered there 
was more tenderness in the contact of the noses than of 
the lips. It is by the nose that we breathe, he added; it 
is there that we feel the breath of the loved one, and it 
seems to us that we put our soul into contact with his. I 
pleaded for the lips, but we might have discussed all day 
without coming to an understanding; our mode of feeling 
was different. He thought our women very beautiful, but 


140 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


he could not habituate himself to our aquiline noses, so 
long, so enormous, said he. 

In the widest sense of the word, a caress may be made 
with any part of the body. But the foot is that which is 
least frequently employed, and only when one cannot 
employ another, or perhaps among some inferior nations 
when, by placing on his head or his face the foot of another, 
a man desires to affirm the devotion and respect which he 
feels towards the former. 

The true organ of caress is the hand. The fingers 
are articulated and flexible levers which allow us to touch, 
to tickle, to press, to embrace, to possess, by multiply- 
ing sweet contacts and delicious sensations. It is not 
without reason that caro (dear) and caress have the same 
etymology. The hand which caresses seeks the hand or, in 
the tenderer movements, the face of the loved one. Often 
one hand is not enough for us: even two scarcely suffice. 
Look at the affectionate expression of a mother who passes 
a loving hand over the face of her child, and say if one 
could find a sweeter or more natural picture of affection. 

In a caress one gives and receives at the same time. 
The hand which distributes love, as by a magnetic 
effusion, receives it in turn from the skin of the loved one. 
It is on this account that one of the most habitual and 
most voluptuous expressions of love consists in passing 
the hand through the hair. The hand finds, in this laby- 
rinth of supple and living threads, an infinite multiplication 
of these amorous contacts. It seems that each hair is an 
electrical thread placing us in intimate connection with 
the senses, with the heart, and even with the thought of 
the one we love. It is not for nothing that the long tresses 
of women have been for all time a pledge of love, and that 
the bald bewail the loss of a whole province of the empire 
of pleasure. 

The clasping of hands is a sort of caress; but it is of 
all the least sensual. It simply expresses that two men 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 141 


recognise each other, and that they have no wish to harm, 
and no reason to hate each other. It is one of the 
most habitual modes of salute in the human family ; 
and even savage nations, who do not practise it, 
always interpret it as a mark of benevolence. Among 
civilised peoples, it is the most natural expression of 
friendship, and the national character often bestows a 
characteristic imprint upon it. Every one knows the violent 
and energetic and-shake of the Englishman. The Italians 
clasp the hand with a passionate effusion which is abso- 
lutely unknown among the peoples of the North. Many 
people, who are very cold and not expansive, never respond 
to your hand-shake; they leave between your fingers a 
corpse-like member which awakens fear and horror. 

The shake of the hand, though it may be one of the 
simplest acts of expression, expresses so many things that it 
would need a volume to indicate all. In clasping the hand 
of a friend, or of a lover, one may wish to say—J aistrust 
you, L no longer love you, IT desire you, I adore you, [ awatt 
you. 

A shake of the hand given by a man to a woman may 
also be impertinent—more impertinent than a box on the 
ear. 

Next in the series of affectionate contacts, after the caress 
and the clasping of hands, is the embrace, which is the 
intertwining of the upper limbs; it is almost the reciprocal 
abandonment of two existences which throw themselves on 
one another as though they would merge themselves into 
one. Its form varies, even among civilised nations; now 
both arms strain the whole body of the other and recipro- 
cally ; now one arm only passes over the shoulder and just 
touches the back in different ways. Sometimes the embrace 
takes place twice; first we enfold one part and then the 
other part of the body of our beloved. In my travels in 
Lapland! I described the manner in which the Lapps 


1 Mantegazza, Viageto in Lapponia coll’ amico Sommier. Florence. 


142 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


embrace, and in my Dio Jeno/o' the strange manner 
customary among the aborigines of the Pampas. 

Beyond the embrace, or, to say better, in another sphere 
of amorous sensibility, we find the kiss, unknown to many 
people, customary among all civilised nations, but in a 
different measure and with very diverse value. For 
example, the French kiss continually, even among persons 
of different sexes ; among the Italians, on the contrary, and 
especially among the Easterns,a man may only kiss the 
woman he possesses, or a daughter or a sister. 

The kiss has many pages in the history of the human 
family ; it has often been washed out in blood, and it has 
raised wars between tribes or between peoples. ‘This is 
natural; the source of immense voluptuousness, it has been 
able to excite an immense envy; it may reveal treason or 
promise felicity. 

The lips belong to the skin and also to the viscera. On 
this rosy frontier the inner and the outer nature of the 
man meet and exchange their emanations, while thousands 
of very sensitive nerves give and receive the impressions 
derived from the senses, from the heart, or the brain. ‘The 
poets were indeed right when they said that there two souls 
meet; lovers, for all time, have rightly cried in the anguish 
of ardent desire—A kiss or death! Cases are not rare 
in which the kiss may be followed by swooning, and 
any individual of excessively amorous and sensitive tem- 
perament may be precipitated by the kiss into the last 
catastrophe of erotic being. 

The kiss caresses at once both the skin and the viscera ; 
but there is an extreme difference between a kiss given and 
received, and a kiss only given or only received. ‘This 
many ladies know, and, greater casuists than theologian or 
lawyer, confess without blushing that they have received 
many kisses, while adding that they have never given any. 

It would perhaps be a profanation to analyse this 

1 Mantegazza, 77 Dio Zenoto. Milan, 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 143 


phenomenon of expression, but, scientifically considered, it 
is, however, true that a kiss not returned is a note of 
exchange not accepted. The kiss given is a soliloquy, a 
desire, an aspiration ; the kiss returned is a note of exchange 
accepted, written often with tears or with blood, but which | 
has the brutal force of an accomplished fact. The kiss given 
is one of the thousand seeds which fertile nature disperses to 
the four winds, and which is dried up or rots away without 
a friendly soil receiving it. The kiss returned, on the 
contrary, is always fertile; it is always a solemn fact 
which leaves in us some fragments of the flesh, of the 
heart, and the thought of another. The kiss given and 
received is a marriage. Fear, religion, interest, space, time 
may separate a man and a woman who have exchanged 
a kiss; but they have possessed, and they belong to, 
each other. 

The kiss given may be so little sensual as to be related 
to an expression which is not at all that of love. Men kiss 
the feet of idols, and holy relics, the garments of heroes, and 
the icy marbles of temples. In all these kisses there are 
but two lips, those which give. 

Even between the living, the kiss may be a mark of 
respect, of veneration, and not of love. ‘Thus, we kiss the 
hand out of politeness, of gratitude, of humility. Thus 
again one kisses the brow of one’s son, one’s daughter, or 
the great man whom one admires. 

Still more singular are those cold conventional kisses in 
which, though there may be four lips in play, the four lips 
do not meet. Each nose just kisses the cheek; but, with 
a beautiful chassez-croisez, the noses change place and just 
touch the cheek of the other. ‘These are still kisses; they 
belong scientifically to the expression of benevolence ; but 
what a gulf between them and the kiss given by Paolo to 
Francesca ! 

When the mouths abandon themselves each to the other, 
when the lips which touch are no longer either two or 


144 PH VSIOGNOMY. 


four, but one only; when all frontier has disappeared 
between mine and thine; when skin and viscera, soul and 
body touch, intermingle and merge one into the other, then 
it is a true kiss, a perfect kiss, perhaps the most beautiful 
expression of love, which draws the man and the woman 
together to re-illumine the torch of life. 

Behind the lips there is another very sensitive organ, the 
tongue, which often takes part in the expression of love. 
This often happens with animals, who, for example, lick 
their young. 

I even know a very affectionate child, who, without 
having learnt it from any one, licks the people to whom he 
wishes to show friendship. 

The different elements of expression which we have 
studied are combined in different ways to form complex 
pictures, of which these are the most striking— 

Lixpression of Sexual Love. 

Expression of Maternal Love. In this we find every warm 
tint.of the erotic world save voluptuousness. As it is one 
of the most animal and the most automatic affections, it is 
always characterised by impetuosity, an extreme energy 
almost convulsive and volcanic. Many great artists have 
known how to make themselves immortal by rendering the 
expression of maternal love, which is at once so sensual and 
so elevated, so impetuous and so constant, 

The Expression of Compassion. This is a binary com- 
pound of the expression of pain and of love. ‘The picture 
of it is so frequent, so familiar, that the most mediocre 
painters have always known how to represent him who, 
seeing another suffer, suffers with him (cum eo patitur). 

Generic Expression of Benevolence. This is an affectionate, 
serene, and tranquil expression, without the warm tints of 
desire and voluptuousness, and without the sad colouring of 
compassion. 

It may rise by degrees to the expression of friendship, 
which is an elevated and well-defined form of benevolence 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 145 


between men. In both of these expressions you will find 
the smile, the expansion of the features, and a certain 
energy of movement which demonstrates our disposition to 
aid i to raise them, and sometimes to laugh and 
wer_~at once. 

This expression of benevolence for men may become 
permanent on a face, and thus give it a generic character 
which is commonly called the face of az honest man, of a 
good fellow. We shall speak of it again in relation to the 
criteria by which we may appreciate the moral value of 
a face; but meanwhile I may be permitted to show how 
much uncertainty on this subject prevails in the old works 
on physiognomy, and even in the most recent. 

See, for example, what the celebrated Dalla Porta says 
about it— 

“On the Face of the Good Man.—Since good manners 
always accompany justice and the hatred of vices, we shall 
collect the scattered features of the upright man and the 
moral man, and with them compose a face the characteristic 
signs of which will be, for the most part, those of the 
average. 

“The Good Man.—To be recognised by the average 
character of all his features. ‘The large nose, well propor- 
tioned to the face; if long, descending to the mouth; if 
short, wide and open. ‘The face beautiful, the breathing 
regular, the chest wide and the shoulders ample; the 
breasts mediocre; the eyes deeply set, large, mobile, like 
water in a glass, with a constant gaze; the circles of the 
eyes mediocre, the eyes always open, dark, and moist.. 
The aspect amiable or melancholy; the lashes united, 
the brow austere and humble. 

“The Moral Man.—The brow keeps the medium between 
calm and agitation. The ears suitably large and square, 
the face mediocre, the voice intermediate between the 
animated and the feeble or delicate voice, the laugh seldom, 


nails wide, white or rosy; eyes blue and concave, large, 
10 


146 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


immobile, and gleaming, moist as water ; feet well formed, 
nervous, and delicately jointed.” 

I pity those who would make use of these portraits to 
recognise the good or the moral man. 

The small-nosed may not be a good man, and he of the 
brown eyes must resign the claim to good morals! What 
cabbala, what confusion, what conjectures, and what poor 
science! Submit all the assertions of the Neapolitan 
physiognomist to a severe analysis; we only find two 
truths among them. ‘The first, that the face of a good man 
does not present any positive signs of perversity, and the 
second that his eyes “‘gaze with constancy ”—that is to 
say, express sincerity and frankness. 

Let us jump over two centuries at least, and see how 
Lepelletier paints “‘the conscientious, indulgent, incor- 
ruptible man of perfect abnegation ”— 

‘A regular head, clearly drawn in its contours, a marked 
predominance of the cranium over the face, the features of 
which are generally fine, delicate, and well harmonised; a 
lofty, noble, worthy forehead on which the candour, the 
beauty of the soul gleams with an unspeakable expression, 
where the purest and most delicious radiance of feeling and 
of thought seems to expand without effort. 

‘““The neck not too ample, rounded, slow, simple, and 
graceful in its movements, well set off from the shoulders, 
generally effaced, not prominent or mobile; a delicate, 
elegant bust, natural in its poses, flexible without undula- 
tions, without pretension and without artifice in its move- 
ments; the limbs participate in his happy physiological 
disposition, and only execute useful, precise, and reserved 
movements. .. .” 

What fine words, and how little observation! What 
uncertainty and what vicious circles! Lepelletier, after — 
two centuries, was not able to correct a single feature i in the 
grotesque picture which Dalla Porta had traced. 


1 Giov. Battista Dalla Porta, of. cét. 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 147 


Lavater, in whom, however, the scientific tendency is 
wanting, often guesses with subtilty of feeling that which 
experience could not suggest to him. Listen to him— 

** Signs of Probity.—There are no forms of face which are 
not susceptible of a certain amount of probity; but all do 
not lend themselves to it indiscriminately. ‘The ugliest and 
the most discredited faces are sometimes the most honest ; 
the most beautiful and the best proportioned are often 
deceitful. Nevertheless, I would trust a regular face more 
willingly than distorted features. When the eyebrows, the 
eyes, the nose and the lips are in harmony, the expression 
of probity only acquires the greater certitude. 

“We risk nothing by calling a face honest which unites in 
the same degree energy and goodness. Kindliness, when it 
is alone, undertakes things which are above its powers; it 
promises that which it cannot perform, it commences that 
which it cannot accomplish. Energy, when it is not 
softened by kindliness, is difficult to move: it does not do 
what it might: it becomes oppressive and unjust. Kindli- 
ness without energy is a cloud without water ; energy with- 
out kindliness resistance without lever. If a man only 
possesses one of those qualities he cannot be perfectly 
good. Energy quite alone is hardness, and excessive 
kindliness degenerates into simplicity. The one sins by 
the fault of gentleness, the other by excess of rigour; it is 
in the just medium that we find active force, equity, 
probity. 

“Thus mildness and severity, so long as they are isolated, 
are not associated with probity. This latter demands at 
the same time facility and strength, strength which shall not 
be oppressive and a facility that cannot be played with, the 
consciousness of what we are and of what we are not, of 
that which we have and of that which we need, of that 
which we can do and of that which is above our power. 
Such are the fundamental features of honesty. Astuteness 
is a want of energy which we seek to dissimulate with an 


148 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


effort. Every effort which does not respond to an internal 
force or an immediate external cause is a feint. Whatever 
is feigned is not natural, and that which is unnatural is 
contrary to honesty.” 

And further on— | 

“T especially recognise the honest man, as also the eae 
wise man, by the way in which he knows how to listen. It 
is at that moment that energy and good will and their 
reciprocal proportions show themselves most clearly. 

“IT also count among the physiognomical features of 
probity a certain clearness of the eyes, a luminous look 
which seems to combine calmness and mobility, and which 
holds the mean between the bright and dull look—a mouth 
without grimaces and contortions—harmony between the 
movements of the lips and those of the eyes—a complexion 
which is neither too leaden nor too sanguine, nor too 
pale. 3 
‘“The signs that I have just enumerated may be absent 
in many honest faces; but it is very difficult to find them 
combined in the face of a scamp. 

“A man who, laughing heartily, does not give vent to 
the least sign of irony, who, after the first explosion of 
gaiety, continues to smile peacefully, and whose face after- 
wards takes on an expression of satisfaction and of serenity, 
very certainly deserves our confidence, and his honesty 
cannot be put in doubt. Generally the different ex- 
pressions of laughter and of smiling may be considered as 
characteristic indications of honesty and dishonesty.” 

And see how little Lavater, who was a priest and a holy 
man, esteemed his fellows. He finished his chapter with 
these words—‘‘ The physiognomical features of courage 
accompany those of honesty. Every fraud is an act of 
cowardice. According to this belief, I believe that there is 
no condition where honesty is more known than among 
soldiers, It is just as rare in another profession ,. , 
which I will not name.” 


EXPRESSION OF LOVE. 149 


I wished to reproduce a whole page from the work of 
Lavater, because there we find combined the faults and 
the merits of this immortal author. When one has just 
read Dalla Porta and Lepelletier one feels transported into 
a more breathable atmosphere, one admires the subtleties 
of his psychological observations, the perfectly feminine 
sensitiveness which knows how to distinguish the most 
delicate traits of human nature. But what uncertainty in 
the lines, how many divinations substituted for observation, 
what perpetual confusion between the facts and their 
interpretation ! 

To-day we have rightly become more exacting of 
scientific methods ; thus in the study of the interpretation 
of the face and of expression we have more often to 
destroy than to construct. We must limit ourselves to 
saying that in men disposed to good the most frequent 
expression is that of benevolence, and that, in conse- 
quence, the expressions which we have sought to analyse 
and study in this chapter are found permanently on their 
faces. If, however, a definition, an aphorism, is exacted 
of me, here is mine in all its voluntary indigence. 

The face of the upright man ts, above all, frank, because tt 
has nothing to conceal, it ts serene and smiling, because the 
exercise of gentle affections ts one of the surest and most dur- 
able joys of our life. 


CHAPTER XII 


EXPRESSION OF DEVOTION, OF VENERATION, AND OF 
RELIGIOUS FEELING, 


In a wide sense, devotion, veneration, and all the affective 
and intellectual energies, which we comprise synthetically 
under the name of religion, belong to the order of bene- 
volent feelings ; thus the expression corresponding to them 
tends to take the form of the expression of benevolence. 
We certainly cannot express esteem, veneration, or religious 
fervour by clenching the fist, gnashing our teeth, or showing 
passion under any form. 

The expressions which we are studying are always com- 
posed of different elements. Veneration consists of loving 
and admiring at the same time; now admiration is an 
intellectual fact which has its special expression, In 
devotion, in esteem, in respect, a third element intervenes 
—our instinctive tendency to lessen ourselves before a being 
whom we feel, or whom we believe to be, greater or loftier 
than ourselves. All this is found in the religious sentiment, 
and to it is added fear, hope, or repentance. We will go on 
to study in order its different comparative expressions. 

Esteem, Devotion, Veneration.—In the simplest expres- 
sions of esteem one sees the smile of affection, but contained 
and tempered by a loftier feeling. The eye is fixed and 
widely open, but at the same time inclined to look 
downwards, the first symptom which indicates the existence 
of devotion, the abasement of oneself. Darwin has only 
given a few lines to the expression of admiration, but they 
are traced with a master’s hand— 

“Admiration apparently consists of surprise associated 


PAFPRESSION OF DEVOTION, ETC. 15% 


with some pleasure or a sense of approval, When vividly 
felt, eyes are opened and the eyebrows raised; the eyes 
become bright instead of remaining blank, as under simple 
astonishment; and the mouth, instead of gaping open, 
expands into a smile.” 

Lebrun has devoted three plates to these emotions in 
his physiognomical atlas." He says of admiration— 

“This passion causing but little agitation, alters as little 
the parts of the face. Still, however, the brows are raised, 
the eye opens rather more than ordinarily, the pupil 
stationed exactly half-way between the lids seems fixed upon 
the object, the mouth is partly opened, and forms no 
marked change in the cheeks.” 

Lebrun’s Plate 4 represents admiration with stupor; 
but it is not happily drawn, for it rather recalls luxury. The 
commentary accompanying the face is of more value. 

“The movements which accompany this passion scarcely 
differ from those of simple admiration, except that they are 
more vivid and marked, the eyebrows more elevated, the 
eyes more open, the pupil further from the lower eyelid and 
more fixed, the mouth more open, and all parts in much 
more obvious tension.” 

Plate 5 gives us veneration, but here again the artist 
is inferior to the man of science. The eyes are too much 
closed, the head too much inclined ; this face might as well 
represent humility or moral dejection, or still other emotions. 
The commentary is good. 

“From admiration is born esteem, and this produces 
veneration, which, when it has something divine and 
hidden from the senses as its object, causes us to bow our 
heads and to lower our brows ; the eyes are almost closed 
and fixed, the mouth shut. These movements are gentle, 
and produce few changes in the other parts.” 

Plate 6 of Lebrun represents rapture, an almost abso- 
lutely intellectual phenomenon, which may be produced 


1 Charles Lebrun, Expression des passions de lame. 


I52 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


by different causes. Still, as- we associate it indirectly with 
the expression of religion, it will not be out of place to recall 
here what Lebrun has said on the subject— 

‘Although rapture has the same object as veneration, 
considered differently, its movements are not the same; 
the head is inclined to the left side; the eyebrows and the 
pupil are directly raised; the mouth is partially opened, 
and the two sides are also slightly raised. The rest of the 
parts remain in their natural position.” 

The basis of devotion and of veneration is always a 


feeling of affection.. The proof of this is seen in several 


acts which accompany its elementary expression, described 
below, in the tendency to kiss the hands, the feet, or the 
garments of the person who inspires the respect, or to put 
out the hands, the palms directed towards the axis of our 
body, as if they were preparing for a caress. ‘This act, 
which Darwin passes over in silence, may be explained in 
another way—by the general tendency of the expression of 
admiration. This.last is always expansive; just as the eyes 
and the mouth enlarge, so the arms lengthen themselves 
from the trunk; the palms of the hands are directed 
towards the horizon, or are turned towards the axis of our 
body. Unless I am deceived, these two positions of the 
hands characterise two different periods of admiration. 

When the palms are turned towards the axis of the body, 
the fingers are more often pressed against each other, and 
the gesture partakes of the nature of a potential caress ; 
and, indeed, there is much affection in the feeling we then 
experience. When, on-the contrary, the palms are turned 
towards the horizon, the fingers are very often much apart, 
as in fright. And because astonishment in this case pre- 
dominates over affection, the expression is rather intellectual 
than affective. 

If admiration passes into rapture, the hands are crossed, 
and rest on the thighs if we are seated, on the stomach if we 
are standing, as though we would take a convenient position 


bila ae al iat eee 


+. 


Bere eS/OLV OL DEVOTION, ETC. 193 


to remain a long time in contemplation, and taste all the 
voluptuousness of admiration. At the same time the head 
is slightly inclined, sometimes on the right shoulder, some- 
times on the left (and not always on the latter, as Lebrun 
claims). 

Another expression consists in joining the hands, as in 
the act of prayer, either on the face, or before us, or finally 
extending them towards the horizon. MHensleigh Wedg- 
wood! would explain this act by atavism, by the unconscious 
recollection of the time when the hands of the vanquished 
were presented to the chains of the victor. Darwin? seems 
disposed to accept this theory. I shall allow myself 
to express a doubt, for the hands are joined to suppli- 
cate God and the powerful beings before whom we 
humiliate ourselves, as well as in veneration and admiration. 
I admit that, accustomed from our childhood to join our 
hands in praying to God, we employ the same gesture to 
supplicate men who may do us much good or much evil, 
and whom we thus put in the place of God. I believe, 
however, that this expression of the hands has in this case 
a more organic and a less historical origin. ‘They serve 
now to extend the circle of expression, now to simulate the 
desire or the attempt to possess and to caress that which we 
venerate, and that which we admire. 

According to my observations, I should advise artists to 
reflect on the following interpretations of the expression of 
the hands which accompanies the admiring expression of 
the face. 

The hands open, with the palms turned towards the axis of 
the body. 

Loving admiration, veneration full of tenderness. It is 
observed in its most characteristic form in one looking at 
the portrait of the cherished dead, or at a sacred image. 

The hands much open, with the fingers apari and the palms 
durned towards the horizon. 


1 The Origin of Language. 2 Darwin, of. cét., p. 221. 


164 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


Admiration full of stupor. It is manifested in the 
presence of an unexpected and grandiose scene of nature. 

The hands interlaced and resting on the thighs or the 
abdomen. - 

The long patient and gentle contemplation of a beautiful 
picture, a beautiful statue, a loved being asleep, or an 
adored corpse. 

The hands joined as in prayer. 

Admiration of the divine or perhaps of an act of heroism, 
or again of a masterpiece of art. 

The trunk and the lower limbs also take part in the 
expression of devotion and of admiration, but always in the 
same way, by drawing nearer to the earth and abasing 
themselves. ‘There is always a tendency to place oneself 
beneath another, and to crouch down so as to occupy the 
least possible space. For this reason we bend the body 
forwards, kneel down, and prostrate ourselves, our faces 
against the earth. 

Among some nations unheard-of and degrading forms of 
this expression are found, such as crawling along on the 
belly, licking the earth, placing the head under the foot of 
him whom they would honour. 

I should exceed the limits I have imposed upon myself, 
if I should write a history of the marks of respect and the 
signs in use at different epochs, and among different 
peoples, indicating the social rank of the person so 
distinguished. Here the natural expression gives place 
to convention, and we enter in the domain of conventional 
language, which has quite a different origin from that of 
expression, Among nearly all civilised peoples it is a sign 
of respect to take off the hat; in other countries this would 
be a want of respect. And even among ourselves it is the 
men only who uncover, and not the women. It is perhaps 
(as Tylor thinks) because in the middle ages men had to 
disarm or remove their helmets before entering a church or 
a friend’s house. ‘The salutation varies not only with sex, 


EXPRESSION OF DEVOTION, ETC. 155 


epoch, and race, but also with profession, for, among us, 
the soldier may not remove his head-covering to salute, but 
must only put his hand to his head. 

In the little that we have said up to this point, all the 
elements will be found necessary to distinguish religious 
expression, which is not a world apart, but a territory where 
the most varied energies are confounded, the highest aspira- 
tions and the lowest fears, to form an empirical medley 
which it will always be very difficult to define scienti- 
fically. 

In religious expression we find veneration, stupor, ardent 
affection, terror, hope, all with which men, or the inanimate 
objects which represent them, can inspire us. The only 
feature which is peculiar to it consists in raising the eyes to 
heaven, doubtless because it is there that men imagine they 
see God and the saints. In religious ecstasy the eyes may 
be so turned upward that the cornea disappears, as happens 
in sleep. 

As art has been for centuries almost solely religious, we 
have thousands of reproductions of simple devotion and of 
the martyr, of humble prayer and of hysterical ecstasy; but, 
even in the immortal works of the great painters and the 
great authors, we should not find an expression which 
differs in any way from the expression of veneration, 
of fear, of hope, of pleasure, or of pain. With a little im- 
agination and with a pen it is possible to manufacture as 
many supernatural worlds as one desires; but it is impos- 
sible to manufacture one single little muscle to express a 
feeling which is only the sum of many energies, all human 
and all susceptible of being anatomically and physiologi- 
cally analysed. 

Lavater would suffice to prove it. Religious as he was, 
he has devoted one of the longest chapters of his work to 
the study of religion and of religious faces; still, with all his 
ingenuity, he has only succeeded in giving a description 


1 Op. cit., tom. iv, p. 167. 


156 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


of the character of religious men, and not a picture of 
religious expression. 

After having said that there is *‘a religious conformation,” 
he feels the need of justifying these strange words, and 
supposes that it will be said of him: ‘‘ The good Lavater 
does not know what he is talking about, and by reason of 
much writing has lost his head.” 

Further, he distinguishes three principal classes of religious 
conformations— 

1. The drawn and hard type (for example, that of Calvin). 

2. The vague and gentle type (in the manner of 
Zinzendorf). 

3. The free and straightforward type, which is sisceptie 
of an excess of rigour or of extreme gentleness (St. Paul and 
St. John). 

In a very happy manner he sketches the physiognomy 
of the Jesuits, and gives some good portraits of Loyola, 
Ximenes, Charles Borromeo, and several others. Nothing 
can be more wonderful than the religious expression of 
an old man praying. All artists who have to treat religious 
subjects should gather inspiration from this little engraving, 
which is quite a poem. 

I give here the commentary which accompanies this 
marvel. 

‘Concentration of a pious heart, absorbed in the medita- 
tion of death, whose every thought turns to God, and who, 
disenchanted of all in this world, only sighs for eternal 
repose. Maybe his devotion is timid and little enlightened ; 
but at least it is sincere. Every feature of the face speaks 
of it, from the contrite and fearful eyes to the wrinkles of 
the brow. It is not a sinner who repents; it is a saint 
who, at the least distraction, fears to lose the path of safety. 
The ardour which once inflamed his youth to-day still 
warms his piety, which is not defiled by the ostentation of 
the Pharisee.” 

In his study on the religious face Lavater has painted 


tied es 


ati) years ee sea nee Os ee 


deren ee 


Ma tat 


Pea et OLON OF DEVOTION, ETC. 157 


himself perfectly in a few lines where the naturalist is seen 
through the mantle of the theologian and religious man. 

“very religious man involuntarily models the divinity 
after his own character. The phlegmatic adore a calm 
and gentle god; the violent fear his power and his 
vengeance. ‘That is why St. Peter and St. John spoke 
of the same God—the one with terror, the other with 
tenderness.” 

If the genius of Lavater has not succeeded in giving us 
the physiognomical type of the religious man, it would be 
wonderful if his vulgar disciples and modern writers had 
had more success, 

Some among them can only be judged with a smile. 
Thoré,! for example, pretends that the elevation of the top 
of the head is a characteristic common to all religious 
men. 

“Works of art present many proofs in support of this 
assertion. Nearly all the antique statues have the upper 
part of the head but little elevated. Such is the pagan 
type, in which religiosity was less developed than in the 
Christian type... . The head of Christ, reproduced by 
masters, offers in its upper part an admirable conformation, 
whether because instinct has guided the artists, or whether 
because this type has been preserved by traditions.” 

Lepelletier attributes the following features to a man 
of sincere piety and faith :—? 

‘The head, even when it does not present a consider- 
able development, is still well formed; the forehead 
predominates without exaggeration; it is pure, noble, 
worthy, without ostentation, without vanity; violent 
emotions never come to disturb its candour; and those 
which might alter its calm seem to be neutralised there 
by the heavenly ray, the light and power of which it 
receives; the eyebrows form two perfect and regularly 


1C, Thoré, Dictionnaire de la phrenologie et de la physiognomie. 
Bruxelles, 1837. 2 Lepelletier, of. czt., p. 543. 


158 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


traced arches; the almond-shaped eyes are somewhat 
large. 

‘“The neck is rather long than short,” etc. 

Oh short-necked men! oh small and round-eyed women ! 
renounce the hope of entering the kingdom of heaven, 
for you can have neither true piety nor sincere faith. 


CHAPTER XIII. 
EXPRESSION OF HATRED, OF CRUELTY, AND OF PASSION. 


How often we have occasion in life to repeat with a 
profound sigh the words of Seume—SHeaven has spoilt 
earth for us/ Wratred is to love in the domain of the 
passions what pain is to pleasure in the domain of sen- 
sations ; and the expression of hatred must be the opposite 
of that of love, just as the feelings which they have to 
manifest are in absolute contradiction. This study, pro- 
ceeding by comparison and antithesis, would be very 
easy if we had formed for ourselves a conception of hatred 
drawn only from observation. But in thinking of hatred 
we are distracted from a healthy judgment by the influence 
of ethical and religious ideas, which have accustomed us 
to look on hatred as a sin. On the contrary, every 
animal, every man born under the sun must and can hate, 
provided that he has formed a right conception of hatred, 
of shrinking from, of reaction against that which threatens 
and offends us. Montaigne, who knew the human heart 
most profoundly, had a presentiment of this truth when he 
said, “ Nature has, as / fear, herself given to a man some- 
thing inclining towards inhumanity.” 

As I have already devoted some volumes to pleasure, to 
pain, and to love, I should like, before I die, to be able 
also to write the Physiology of Hatred; only then shall I 
be able to feel that I have touched the four cardinal 
points between which human nature moves. For the 
present I may be permitted to sketch the expression of 
one of the most powerful human energies, whence more 
than a half of the history of humanity is derived. 


160 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


The old physiognomists have scarcely concerned them- 
selves with more than passion, and have always taken 
great care to distinguish it from hatred, of which, on 
the contrary, it is a particular form. Still, they have left 
us some grotesque portraits of the wicked. Let us rapidly 
pass through some of these bygone mists. 

The ancient treatise of Polemon on Physiognomy, 
translated into Italian by Carlo Montecucoli, says :— 

“ Sions of the Wicked and Foolish—Wicked fools are 
like beasts, some of which are cruel, others gentle, and it is 
thus that we must judge of them. Those who are gentle 
are still more foolish; wild goats, sheep, horses, and other 
like are gentle and quiet ; on the contrary, wild beasts are 
more fierce and violent. In the same way we must reason 


on the face of men, for there are among them two races—. 


the one gentle and just, the other of savage manners. 
They are distinguished from each other by asperity and 
harshness, or by delicacy ; by this we may see whether they 
are arrogant or if they are amiable; gentleness is the 
natural companion of justice, harshness of haughtiness and 
intemperance ; the libidinous are those who much resemble 
the peasant ; the wicked fool has long hair, his head hard 
and awry, large ears, a wry neck, long feet, high heels, a 
harsh and rugged forehead, gloomy, small, dry eyes, his 
gaze fixed, narrow shoulders, a long beard, a wide, open 
mouth, as though crushed, an elongated face and bearing 
as it were scars of wounds; he is bent, big-bellied, with 
thick legs, enormous and coarse wrists and ankles ; he has 
a barking, weak, shrill, and impudent voice. 

“ Signs of the Choleric Man.—He is of upright stature, 
massive figure, red complexion, his shoulders thrown back, 
and not too strong, his chest flat, his beard long and 
curled, his back wide, his hair falling regularly round his 
neck, his face long, his eyelashes curved, his nose 
hollowed.” 

Aristotle distinguishes between three sorts of rage—the 


a 7 
etter eh 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 161 


bilious or sour; the sharp or bitter; the difficult, harsh, or 
cruel— 

“ Biliosi seu acuti supra modum sunt prompti et celeres 
et ad omnia, omnibus de causis, iracundia excandescunt. 
Acerbi ad injuriam ulciscendam non adeo rapiuntur. Sed 
solum ejus memoriam cum intima tristitudine diu retinent, 
quasi diu ni iracundia perseverant ; ultri namque ita sedare 
solet voluptatem afferens, et dolorem ex accepta injuria 
mitigans, permolesti sunt omnibus et sibi ipsis et amicis 
propter perpetuam ex ira tristitudinem conceptam. Asperi 
ac sevi ad vehementiorem iram quam par sit, sunt pro- 
pensiores, diutius irum retinent, neque placantur, nisi 
injuriam ulti sint aut poenam inflixerint.”! 

Niquetius describes with tolerable success the man who 
is overcome by an access of rage— 

* Rubet in ira facies ; quia ebullit sanguis circa cor et 
subtillissimus spiritus affatim caput petit, ac primo quidem 
per nervos sexti paris constringitur jecur ; constringitur et 
cor ad appulsum mali quod iram provocat ; effunditur bilis 
a vesicula in venam cavam (sc /) deinde hic sanguis bile 
permixtus cor petit, et circa ipsum jam propter spem vin- 
dictee, que ut bona menti objjicitur, dilatatum, ebullit ; 
atque ex hac constrictione et dilatatione cordis oritur ut 
initio qui irascuntur, palleant, tum subito ignescant ; fateor 
vero nonnullos esse qui diutissime palleant, sive quod 
eorum ita maxime cum timore conjuncta sit, quod verentur 
quz moliuntur aggredi, sive quod atrabili abundent que 
non adeo celeriter accenditur, et accensa non adeo facile 
evaporatur, huc referendum est quod palpitat cor propter 
nimium calorem quo circumestuat, tremunt membra, quia 
insequabiliter et tumultuarie spiritus diffunduntur. . , .”? 

Many centuries before Niquetius, Seneca had traced a 
far more beautiful picture of rage— 

« . , Ut furentium certa indicia sunt audax et minax 

1 Honorati Niquetii, Physzognomia humana. Lugduni, 1648. 


2 Jbid., p. 87. Lugduni, 1648. 
Lt 


162 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


vultus, tristis frons, torva facies, citatus gradus, inquiete 
manus, color versus, crebra et vehementius acta suspiria, 
ita irascentium eadem signa sunt: flagrant et nutant oculi, 
multus ore toto rubor, estuante ab imis preecordiis san- 
guine, labia quariuntur, dentes comprimuntur, horrent et 
surriguntur capilli: spiritus coactus ac stridens: articu- 
lorum se ipsos torquentium sonus: gemitus, mugitusque 
parum explanatis viribus, sermo preruptus et complexe 
seepius manus, et pulsata humus pedibus, et totum con- 
citum corpus, magnasque minas agens, foeda visu et 
horrenda facies.” 

There truly we have the picture of a master. 

Ghiradelli strives to prove to us that a man with a small 
forehead, and still more, a pointed nose, is necessarily a 
passionate and wicked man, and he gives us the physio- 
logical reasons for this— 

** A small forehead denotes a passionate man because it 
is a sign that his animal spirits are crowded together in the 
anterior part of the brain, that they are pressing one upon 
the other and become inflamed, which often sets the blood 
and brain on fire, and consequently the heart, because of 
the correspondence which exists between these principal 
organs of our life; and passion is nothing else than the 
blood becoming heated within the heart.” | 

To Ghiradelli the nose is the centre of passion. 

“Now, it is right to know that the nose (in addition 
to its peculiar office, which is to purge the brain of its 
excrements) has also another, which is, when the passion of 
rage and indignation is kindled and inflamed within the 
bosom, to manifest it without in such a way that the 
point of the nose shows us the perturbation of irascible 
power. 

“And as oxen have very lymphatic and but slightly bilious 
flesh, and because they have thick noses with rather 
depressed nostrils, and are generally very indolent animals, 
it is permissible to conjecture that he who has a nose like 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 163 


that of the ox will be indolent in his business and slow to 
get into a passion, and all this conforms to the rule of 
contraries. Passionate people are wont to have pointed 
noses, and on the least occasion of irritation we see them 
Poured, ..-. ,” 

The strange discovery that a pointed nose indicates a 
disposition to anger does not however properly belong to 
Ghiradelli. See how many have preceded him— 

“ Nasus in extremitate acutus, mendactt est nota, litts et 
tracunadie signum ; est enimacolera.,..” 

And elsewhere— 

“ WVasus in extremo acutus trascibiles notat.” —GRATTAROLA. 

“Nast summum gracile si fuerit facilem tracundiam,”— 
POMPONIO GAURICO. 

‘Men with very pointed noses are generally impatient, 
disputatious, proud, because they are of choleric com- 
plexion, and in the mixture of the principles of their 
temperament the igneous parts are dominant.”— 
INGEGNIERO. 

“A very small nose denotes a man of changing humour. 
... If the nose ts thin, he who possesses it ts very passionate. 
Moreover, tf the end ts pointed, he will be a cruel man,”— 
G. B. Datua Porta. 

I am very sorry to be obliged to contradict so many 
distinguished authors; but, without going beyond my family 
and the circle of my intimate acquaintances, I can absolve 
pointed noses from the grave accusations brought against 
them from Pomponio Gaurico to Niquetius. An entire 
family of passionate people is characterised by possessing 
very rounded noses; and an excellent pater familias, 
whom it is impossible to get into a passion, has so pointed 
an end to his nose that he might on an emergency make use 
of it as a stiletto. 

Lavater, who was so amiable a mixture of benevolence 
and of mysticism, only occupied himself incidentally with 
the physiognomy of the wicked. And so he could write 


164 PHVSIOGNOMY. 


on the beautiful frontispiece of his work that his Zssay on 
Phystognomy was destined to make man known and loved. 
However, in the seventh fragment of his Phystognomical 
Anecdotes, he shows that it is sometimes possible to read 
on the human face feelings of passing or permanent 
hatred. 

“May I die if this man isn’t a rascal!” said Titus, 
speaking of the priest Tacitus. “I have seen him weep 
and sob at the tribune three times when there was nothing 
of such a sort as to draw tears, and turn round ten times 
to hide a smile when there was a question of crimes or of 
misfortunes.” 

‘‘A stranger, named Kubisse, crossing a room with us 
in the house of M. Langes, was so struck by a portrait 
which was there with many others, that he forgot to follow 
us and stopped to contemplate the picture. An hour after, 
seeing Kubisse did not return, we went to seek him, and 
found him with his eyes still fixed on this picture. ‘* What 
do you think of this picture?” asked M. Langes; “is it 
not that of a beautiful woman?” “Without doubt,” 
replied the other; “but if it is like, the person that it © 
represents has a very black soul—she must be a demon.” 
It was the portrait of Brinvilliers, the celebrated female 
poisoner, as celebrated by her Mera as by her crimes, 
which led her to the stake.” , 

Such are the mists of the past where anatomy and 
expression, cabalism and observation, are confounded. 
Let us come to the present, which exacts sure methods 
and positive analyses. 

The expression of hatred rests entirely on this funda-~ 
mental basis: shrinking from that which we hate, from 
that which causes us to suffer, from that which threatens 
us. 

The particulars of the expression, such as a minute 
analysis furnishes, are found collected in the following 
table :— 


pall tok 
fae 
. 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 165 


SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED. 


Drawing back the head. 
Elementary | Drawing back the whole trunk. 
movements of } Throwing the hands forward as though to defend 
shrinking and oneself from the hated object. 
of repugnance | Contracting or closing the eyes. 
Elevation of the upper lip and contraction of the nose. 


Unusual wrinkling of the eyebrows. 
Eyes widely opened. 
Showing the teeth. 
Gnashing the teeth or contraction of the jaws. 
Opening the mouth wide and putting the tongue out. 
The fists closed. 

Potential or) Threatening movements of the arms. 

actual threats. | Beating with the feet. 

Deep inspirations—puffing expiration. 
Grunting and different cries. 


Automatic repetition of the same word and of the 
same syllable. 


Sudden weakening and trembling of the voice. 
Spitting. 


General trembling. 

Convulsions of the lips. 

Convulsions of the limbs and of the trunk, 

Self-inflicted pains, such as biting the fists or gnawing 
the nails. 

Sardonic laughter. 

Vivid redness of the face. 

Sudden pallor of the face 

Extreme dilatation of the nostrils. 

The hair standing erect. 


Different re- 
actions, vaso- 
motor and 
sympathetic 
phenomena. 


The signs of shrinking from, and of repulsion, serve to 
mark the transition from repugnance to hatred in the 
ordinary sense of the word; but for us they belong to 
a single natural group of acts of expression. 

According to the degree of aversion, according to our 
sensitive dispositions, according to our power of controlling 
ourselves, we can express hatred with a certain amount of 
seriousness—the first expression of pain ; or we may take 


166 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


the expression of repugnance and disgust, and pass thence 
to the most manifest reactions of aggressive hatred. 

Hatred, such as we understand it in the common 
acceptation of the word, enters but little or not at all 
into disgust, into aversion for an inanimate thing. In 
this emotion there is only a purely pained expression, 
although with it may be associated, in different propor- 
tions, the expression of shrinking which is the beginning 
of hatred. 

Civilisation has so clipped our nails and blunted our 
teeth that sometimes a violent hatred can have no other 
external manifestation than a simple backward movement 
of the head. However imperceptible this act may be, it is 
always accompanied by some act of expression in relation 
to pain. And this pain has certainly two causes: first, the 
unpleasantness of finding oneself before a detested person ; 
and secondly, the annoyance felt at being forced to repress 
and dissimulate one’s hatred and grief. 

Suddenly, in the midst of a company of amiable and well 
brought-up people, a man enters who is antipathetic to all, 
and perhaps to some an object of contempt and violent 
hatred. Then is the moment to study the negative, and, so 
to speak, the dawning expression of hatred. The head 
withdraws from the axis of the body; the body leans 
against the back of the chair or against the wall; there is a 
general centrifugal movement. At the same time lips con- 
tract, faces, which a moment before were gay and serene, 
are clouded over. Thus you have before you a complete 
picture of the expression of hatred, but reduced by social 
restraint to an expression scarcely indicated. You have a 
tendency to withdraw from the hateful person, which repre- 
sents a whole group of the expression of repulsion. You 
have the expression of pain which most often accompanies 
the expression of hatred. Finally, you have a silent con- 
traction of the lips, which is the first warning of resistance 
—of a fight that is about to begin. The first thing that 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 167 


aman inevitably does when he is preparing for a fight is 
always to hold in his breath and close his mouth. 

The wrinkling of the eyebrows is a very characteristic 
element of the expression of hatred, and marks the 
transition between two groups of expression. When this 
wrinkling is slight it only indicates pain. When it is very 
pronounced, it tends to frighten the adversary by giving 
to the eyes a threatening expression, as happens among 
several anthropoids. There are domains common to 
hatred and to pain: these two emotions are often inter- 
mingled and entangled to such a point that it is impossible 
to make an elementary analysis of the binary psychical 
compound which is before our eyes. We suffer and we 
rebel against this suffering, and we get into a passion as if 
pain were an enemy to conquer; at other times we hate 
profoundly and we suffer from this hatred. In both cases 
the expressions are identical: Jove and pleasure—hatred and 
pain; there we have two binary compounds, two such 
energetic psycho-expressive combinations that the formid- 
able and destructive voltaic pile of our analytic methods is 
needed to separate their elements. 

The eye plays a great part in the expression of hatred, 
and that in two different and almost opposite ways. In 
simple repugnance, in simple shrinking, the eye closes, 
entirely or partially, as though to repulse the sight of 
the thing or of the person which we hate. When, on the 
other hand, we reach the period of reaction or of menace, 
the eye is widely opened, the upper eyelid almost disappears, 
and the glance is intrepidly fixed, taking the character which 
we righily call menacing, since it announces an imminent, 
or at least a virtual, threat. Terror and horror are translated 
by identical looks. This analogy is so real that Lebrun, in 
his atlas, could not distinguish hatred from terror, and it 
would be possible without any injury to the truth to 
transpose the numbers which he has placed below his 
figures 16, 17, and 18, In figure 16, entitled Horror, the 


168 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


muscles are contracted as in hatred, and figure 17, entitled 
fear, might also be given as representing a fit of passion. 
Figure 18 expresses fassion, but it might serve just as well 
for fear, Figure 17, Ha/red or Jealousy, is more successful. — 
But all these figures are false or incomplete, because they 
want the expression of the arms and of the hands which, in 
great emotions, always complement the expression of the 
face. jf 

Represent atred on the face while you give to the 
hands the gesture of fear, and you will leave the picture of 
horror. Represent horror on the face, and add clenched 
fists, and you will have the picture of hatred. 

The inexact and incomplete plates of Lebrun are corrected 
by the explanations which accompany them. 

“ kage. The effects of rage make known its nature. The 
eyes become red and inflamed; the pupil wild and gleam- 
ing ; the eyebrows now lowered, now equally raised; the 
forehead very wrinkled; folds between the eyes; the 
nostrils open and distended ; the lips pressed together, the 
lower projecting beyond the upper; leaving the corners of 
the mouth a little open; forming a cruel and disdainful 
smile. 

** Hatred or jealousy. ‘This passion renders the forehead 
wrinkled, the eyebrows lowered and ruffled, the eye flashing, 
the pupil half hidden under the eyebrows turned aside from 
the subject; it should appear full of fire as well as the 
white of the eye and the eyelids; the nostrils pale, open, 
more marked than generally, drawn backwards, causing 
the appearance of wrinkles in the cheeks; the mouth closed 
in such a way that the teeth are seen to be closely pressed 
together ; the corners of the mouth drawn backwards and 
very much lowered; the muscles of the jaw will appear 
depressed ; the colour of the face partly inflamed, partly 
yellowish, the lips pale or livid.” 

To compare the large artistic figures of Lebrun with 

the little phototypes which illustrate Darwin’s book, is 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 169 


to see with a glance what an immense step the science 
of physiognomy has made in the relatively short period 
which separates the great painter from the great naturalist. 
There, all is art and convention, all is exaggeration 
and confusion; here, nature, which is well questioned, 
answers still better. There, theory, which enslaves truth, 
maims or deforms her; here, truth is quite naked, and 
offers herself for contemplation and admiration. 

In the expression of hatred the eye is not only closed 
or concealed ; it also frequently becomes vividly coloured ; 
this is the sign of strong congestion tending to the head. 
In the gravest cases, the eye starts from the orbit; this is 
a sign of excessive hyperzemia, and in vulgar parlance is 
expressed thus—Zo have his eyes out of his head, to have eyes 
which seem ready to start out of his head, etc. According 
to Gratiolet, the pupils in those cases would always be 
very much contracted, as happens in acute meningitis. 

The nose dilates, the wings of the nose are raised, and 
in some individuals in whom these are very mobile this 
trait may be enough to give a ferocious expression to the 
face. ‘That is due to the deep inspirations which tend 
to stop respiration spasmodically, and doubtlessly also to 
a sympathetic phenomenon of the facial muscles, 

One of the great centres of the expression of hate, 
perhaps the most important of all, is the mouth, which 
sometimes remains spasmodically closed to indicate the 
general tension of the muscles preparing for the struggle ; 
more frequently it opens, shows all the teeth, or at least the 
front teeth, or only the canines. 

Darwin has studied this part of the expression of 
hatred admirably, and shown the part which atavism 
plays there. 

The teeth are arms which have fallen into desuetude 
among us who are civilised, but are still employed by 
savages and children, who unconsciously reproduce so 
many traits of the lives of our prehistoric ancestors. But 


170 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


if we no longer bite, we still show our teeth in our fits of 
passion, and we gnash our teeth to make our adversary feel 
their strength. 

In rage we sometimes only show a single canine; our 
faces then take the expression known as the sardonic smile. 
It is not every one whose mouth and facial muscles are so 
conformed as to take this expression; some people can 
contract but one of the elevators of the lip, so as to show 
the canine tooth only ; and at most they can only do so on 
one side. In this sardonic expression, which consists in 
showing a canine tooth, Darwin sees an evident revelation 
of the hereditary tie which unites us to our first ancestors. 
These must have had very powerful canines, and probably 
made use of them as arms of defence. 

I bow before the opinion of the great English 
naturalist; but, as I have already said, I believe that 
that phenomenon of expression, the sardonic smile, as an 
expression of hatred is much more complex. Laughter 
and smiling are very frequent phenomena in the expression 
of hatred. They may be met with in people who would 
not be able to raise one part of the upper lip so as to show 
acanine. It is possible even to smile or laugh to suffoca- 
tion while keeping the mouth shut, and this compressed 
laughter or smiling is the form most frequently associated 
with the expression of hatred. 

If we investigated every case where laughter accom- 
panied hating, we should perhaps find a clue to guide us 
to a logical explanation of the unexpected appearance of 
an expression which generally accompanies the gentle 
emotions or the gayer contrasts of the ridiculous. There 
is no laughter when wrath is in full eruption, but rather 
when hatred is mingled with contempt and disgust. We 
smile or we laugh when we have before us a humiliated 
and confounded adversary, or again when we are pre- 
paring for an explosion of wrath. 

That which makes us laugh then is the contrast of our 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 17% 


fury with the humiliation of the hated person; it isthe joy 
of being able to avenge ourselves immediately, either by 
striking him, or by wounding his self-esteem. Thus 
laughter is much more frequent in the cruellest forms of 
hatred, doubtlessly because vengeance is the sweeter the 
more one hates, or the more one desires to be able to do 
evil to his enemy. 

This is so true that very good people seldom laugh in 
their anger, because they suffer from it. Evil and cruel 
people, on the other hand, laugh because they rejoice to 
see suffering. And then there is another rarer and more 
diabolical form of the laughter of hatred, and at bottom 
this form resolves itself into a cruel instrument of torture. 

A man laughs with all his heart to enliven his victim, 
and render more poignant afterwards to him the passage 
from hope to despair. He seeks to persuade his enemy 
that the latter has nothing to fear, and that he is happy 
and contented, in order to make him feel later the sharp 
thrusts of fury and of vengeance. 

Thus many of the Carnivora act, especially among 
the feline species; thus many savages, especially among 
cannibals. 

I do not believe that these are all the reasons which may 
make us laugh in hatred. To blows, to insults, to the 
outbreak of every violence of our soul, we wish to add 
mockery and derision ; we wish to ridicule our victim, to 
make him pass from the tortures of fear to the humiliation 
of contempt, and above all to thoroughly show him that he 
is an object of ridicule to us. 

The smile accompanies hatred so naturally that we often 
smile when we meditate on vengeance, even when the 
victim is not present, and then we stretch out our hand 
towards the horizon, palm downwards, as though to say, 


1 T have also spoken of the sardonic laugh, considered as a sign of 
contempt, in my Physiology of Pain, p. 326. 


172 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


Wait. And this promised and sworn expectation is inevit- - 


ably accompanied by a ferocious and satanic smile. Here 
the atavistic theories on the canine tooth can no longer 
play a part ; laughter is born from the contrast between the 
tranquillity which, according to our idea, the hated one is 


enjoying with the tempest which we are preparing to launch ~ 


on him. 

In children, savages, and the pariahs of our society, to 
put out the tongue and show its whole length to the enemy 
is a sign of contempt and aversion. In this act of expression 
there is more disdain than hatred; and perhaps the 
expression is associated with that of spitting, either on the 
ground, or on the despised and detested person. ‘This 
expression must be very ancient and very automatic, for we 
see it figured in the idols of Polynesia, of India, and of 
Mexico. For my part, I have seen chimpanzees and 
children spit as a sign of threatening or of wrath, although 
neither the one nor the other had ever learned this gesture 
from any living person. 

The expression of rage and of hatred, as soon as it 
reaches a certain pitch, is always threatening, and is rein- 
forced by movements of the hands and feet. Thus the 
fist is raised towards heaven, or perhaps we beat the air 
several times with the hand, the~ ground with our feet. 
When it reaches this degree, the expression of hatred is 
extremely expansive, and I cannot justify De la Chambre, 
‘councillor of the king and physician in_ ordinary,” 


who, in his work on the characters of the passions, has 


consecrated a whole volume to hatred, and who has still 
been able to utter the following heresy— 

‘¢ Although hatred may be the most disordered of all the 
passions, it is one of those which least expresses itself in the 
face. It seems that, feeling itself guilty of the disorders 
which it causes in the reason, it would keep itself concealed, 
and is ashamed to become apparent. So that, apart from 
some looks and some movements which discover it, all the 


LXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 173 


other changes which come to the body while it is violently 
agitating the soul come rather from the other passions 
which accompany it than from itself.” 

Hatred may certainly remain dumb and concentrated, 
but then there is no longer any expression at all; in the 
same way that a man may love, rejoice, and suffer without 
any external sign coming to manifest his emotion out- 
wardly. But as soon as hatred manifests itself, it is 
translated in an extremely expansive manner. 

We feel, particularly in that special form of hatred which 
we term rage, the need of hurting ourselves and of breaking 
the objects which surround us when we cannot, or will not, 
strike the person hated or some one in his place. 

Generally the degree of the injury which we do to 
ourselves measures the intensity of our rage; the value or 
_ the frailty of the objects broken may likewise give us very 
exact measures. At first we only give ourselves light 
blows, or slightly bite our lips or nails; afterwards we tear 
our hair and beard; we bite ourselves till blood is 
drawn; we may go so far as to wound or finally to kill 
ourselves. There is always a transformation of force, as 
also happens in pain. 

Likewise in the devastation wrought about us in a fit of 
passion. We may begin with an innocent scrap of paper ; 
then we pass to glasses, bottles, chairs, and, in the most 
serious cases, to mirrors, pictures, statues, or other objects 
of value. The more difficult the object is to break, the 
more noise we make in breaking it; the more costly it is, the 
more hatred we breathe forth in this transformation of 
psychical forces, the principal laws of which we have 
studied elsewhere.! 

The circulation is nearly always disturbed in rage; the 
movements of the heart are accelerated, or become irregular, 


1 Mantegazza, Saggio sulla trasformazione delle forze psichiche. 
Arch. per. Vantrop, e Vetnologia, vol. vii. p. 285. Firenze, 1878. 


r74 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


in such a way as to present the phenomenon commonly 
known as palpitations. 

Respiration is troubled, together with circulation; it 
becomes irregular, accelerated, laboured ; all this is a direct 
consequence of the centrifugal currents which start from the 
brain, as well as muscular contractions. 

Many of these troubles have become signs of the 
expression of rage; for example, sudden redness of the 
face, or, as it is commonly said, an inflamed face; gasping 
and prolonged respiration. This last sign, however, is so 
habitual in a certain form of cold rage, which we call 
impatience, or contained disdain, that it has become in a 
certain way characteristic of it. Dramatic artists should 
study with the greatest care the expression of impatience, or 
contained rage, because it offers pictures of great beauty 
and startling expressions. When one knows how to mark 
every degree of crescendo and decrescendo well, it is possible 
to awaken in the spectators the most powerful emotions. 
I should like to be able for the sake of dramatic artists to 
treat here of the proper domain, and of the limits of certain 
sorts of expressions, representing them as on a topographical 
chart, where the passage from one emotion to another should 
be figured by means of expression. In our case, for example, 
from simple expectation one passes to weariness, then to 
impatience, then to concentrated and breathless rage. In 
an inverse sense, from the volcanic and terrible explosion of 
rage, we redescend by degrees to impatience, to displeasure, 
and to weariness. 

Howling, groaning, cries are at the same time different 
forms of respiratory troubles and psychical manifestations 
of hatred, but the cerebral element predominates in them. 
They are exits for the centrifugal currents of the emotion, 
and are at the same time menaces which are associated with 
other acts, such as clenching the fists, raising the arms, and 
enashing the teeth. 

Generally rage inflames the face; but on certain rare 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 175 


occasions, when hatred has reached its paroxysm, the face 
becomes pale, then ghastly, and finally livid. This is 
certainly a consequence of the irritation of nervous centres, 
for it is produced suddenly and involuntarily, before one 
has time to think of placing a check on the passion which 
has utterly taken possession of him. In some people, who 
are but little expansive and at the same time very sensitive, 
rage shows itself only under this form. With the pallor are 
associated, in a way that forms a terrible picture, dilated 
nostrils, eyes fixed which seem to start out of their sockets, 
a static tension of all the muscles, which gives the idea of 
an immense force which is hindered from finding outward 
expression, and which is threatening the machine where it is 
developed with ruin. And, in fact, the organism, which is 
precisely this machine, often collapses. Recall the death of 
Sulla, of Valentinian, of Nerva, of Wenceslas, of Isabella of 
Bavaria, who all succumbed to fits of anger. 

Often in place of howling or of cries, anger renders the 
voice trembling and hoarse, and even produces an involun- 
tary dumbness, that is to say, an incapability of speech. 
These phenomena may be due to fear as well as to rage; 
and I have studied them in my Phystology of Pain. 

If to all these elements of the expression of hatred you 
add muscular convulsions and general trembling, you will 
have completed the analysis of this terrible centrifugal 
energy, which poisons and consumes so many beautiful 
hours of life. 

If we pass from analysis to synthesis, and collect into 
certain pictures the most habitual summary expressions 
of hatred, the most striking and the most distinct scenes 
which we meet are— 

Rage, which we have already studied, and which 
besides is known to all as one of the most frequent 
expressions of human nature. It is the sudden explosion 
of a passing hatred, and often does no harm to any one but 
the person who gets into a fury. Precisely because it is a 


176 PH YVSIOGNOMY. 


violent eruption, it discharges all the nervous centres from 
all their tension, and leaves neither rancour nor hatred 
behind it. Thus proverbs in every age and in every nation 
have only praises for the man who is carried away by his 
wrath, and warn us to beware of sti// waters. Some 
unfortunate people have the infirmity of not being able to 
get into a rage; their hatred being concentrated and con- 
densed inwardly, profoundly alters their character and ~ 
their fortunes, preparing the vende¢te, which last a whole 
lifetime, and psychical venoms so formidable that prussic 
acid and arsenic are nothing in comparison. It is always a 
transformation of force which becomes fatal to him who 
hates and to him who is hated, and which terribly increases _ 
the figures of criminal statistics. Blessed a hundredfold 
are those who stamp their feet, who tear their hair, who break 
glasses and chairs. Cursed are they who hold and con- 
centrate their hatred and let it roast at the fire of an eternal 
rancour. 

Jealousy and envy, which are combinations of mingled 
hate and pain, have no characteristic expression, but they 
take in turn that of rage or of mute hatred, of slow rancour 
or of rage which escapes in intermittent puffs like the smoke 
from a locomotive. In jealousy, love, hatred and pain 
may alternate or be confounded, while in envy the expres- 
sion of wounded self-love generally predominates, which 
resembles so much the expression of the sensation of a 
bitter taste. 

Contempt, fright, horror may be tinged with hatred, 
but with the expression of this emotion are associated the 
particular signs of disgust which we have studied in our 
analytical work. 

Cruelty is a particular aspect of hatred; but it plays by 
itself a sufficiently large 7é/e in the emotions and in expres- 
sion to present to us its own special characteristics. It is 
possible to hate and to be impelled by hatred to the 
greatest extremities, yet without being cruel; and on the 


EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. rey 


other hand, it is possible to have enough cruelty in one’s 
composition to love to exercise it without the necessity of 
hating. Even among ourselves, in the midst of all the 
lights of civilisation, with all the checks which morality and 
religion impose upon us, we meet men who are born cruel, 
and who, prevented by certain reasons, good or evil, from 
doing ill to men, make animals suffer and delight in blood 
and massacre. This element of cruelty has a part in the 
vocation which impels certain men to choose the profes- 
sions of butcher, surgeon, or executioner. I have known 
very good-hearted surgeons and butchers, who yet, in the 
exercise of their trade, betrayed cnough satisfaction and 
ferocious sensuality to make one clearly understand that 
without the checks of morality and religion they would 
have certainly become barbarous assassins. Be present at 
an execution, a bull-fight, or a cock-fight, and watch the 
expressions of the spectators: you will certainly find 
horrible revelations there. At the sight of the gallows or 
of the chulos you will see certain involuntary spasms of 
sanguinary voluptuousness which will recall our anthropo- 
phagous ancestors and the great brotherhood of teeth and 
nails, which makes all living beings either the devourers or 


the devoured. 
Phrenologists, to demonstrate the existence of the organ 


of destructiveness, which they place a little below the ears, 
have collected many examples of an irresistible tendency to 
cruelty. I shall only quote one, taken from among many 
others ; it is that of a priest who became a military almoner 
simply to be able to be present at battles and to see the 
dead and wounded. He was in correspondence with all 
the executioners, even with those from distant towns, so 
that he might be warned when an execution was to take 
place, and he often went long journeys on foot that he 
might be present at them. He also liked to have female 
domestic animals at home, that he might cut the heads 


off their little ones as soon as they were born. 
12 


i78 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


The expression of cruelty is almost exclusively concen- 
trated round the mouth; perhaps because in terrestrial life 
killing and eating are two successive moments of one 
act, which is repeated every day some millions of times. 
The mouth is closed, the corners are drawn back as far as 
possible, while rising gently as though to give the outline of 
a smile, and often a shudder comes with the breath. The 
eye is clear, widely opened, and fixed upon the victim. 
Study the domestic and savage carnivora when they are 
exercising their function of maintaining the equilibrium 
of population, and you will see many pictures of expression 
which recur in men. 

No face recalls the expression of cruelty so much as a 
wanton one. It is frightful, but it is thus. Love and 
blood, death and creation, alternate in this world at short 
intervals, and often without the curtain being lowered 
between the successive scenes. The hand fresh from 
killing caresses a moment later; the lip which has curved 
in the laughter of cruelty grows tender in a creative kiss. 

Hatred, like every emotion in this world, may express 
some indelible’ characters on our faces. It is commonly 
said of a man that he has an envious, jealous, wicked, 
cruel, etc., face; in these expressions, which are supposed 
to be read on the face, there always enters some element 
taken from the expression of hatred. 

This question will be more in place when we are treating 
of the criteria which may be employed in assigning its 
moral value to any face. Here we will only pause 
on the expression of ferocity. It may be permanent in a 
pariah of society ; it may also constitute a race character in 
an entire people who understand nothing of our morality 
and who kill and eat their fellows to live. 

Go and visit our prisons; you will find there! many 
examples of ferocious faces—faces which express cruelty 
even when there is neither motive nor possibility of killing 
or of massacring. You will see these unfortunate people 


eer 


‘EXPRESSION OF HATRED, ETC. 179 


show their ferocity in playing, in joking, in eating, and 
even in sleeping. I am sure that if one could see them 
testify their love, there would still be found this same 
expression of ferocity. 

I have seen similar faces in the photographs of 
Maoris, Papuans, Negroes, North and South Americans. 
I have studied with my eyes this permanent expression 
in the Tobas, and among the different tribes who, under 
the generic name of Pampas (Tehuelches, Pehuelches, 
Ranqueles, Araucanians, etc.), inhabit the vast plain situated 
at the south of the Argentine Republic and of Chili. These 
men, who are so little sympathetic, constantly have wrinkled 
brows and contracted lips; an amiable or serene smile is 

never seen on their mouths; and if you meet them alone 
in the desert you will immediately put your hand to your 
pistol or to the reins of your horse, according to your 
courage, or your more or less combative mood. . 

However deceptive may be the opinions on character 
drawn from the face, however rare may be the spirit of 
observation in every age, still the most ignorant person in 
the world would feel himself quite secure in the midst of a 
tribe of the pacific Lapps ; he would, on the contrary, feel 
full of distrust and terror under the /o/do of a family of 
Pampas: for that it would be enough to look at the faces 
of his hosts. 

Whoever has once seen in South America a Toba beside 
a Chiriguano could distinguish at the first glance which of 
the two belonged to a ferocious and cruel tribe, and which 
had the honour of belonging to one of the principal branches 
of this gentle and pacific race of the Guaranis, made to love 
and obey. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE EXPRESSION OF PRIDE, VANITY, HAUGHTINESS, 
MODESTY, AND HUMILIATION. 


AT every step in the study of the infinite number of expres- 
sions of which man is capable, we find confirmation of the 
law according to which expression is the clearer and more 
characteristic in proportion as it is provoked by a more 
powerful, by a better defined emotion. We perceive it in 
pleasure and in pain, in love and in hatred, in pride and in 
humiliation, which are the fundamental psychical movements 
of human nature, as ancient as man, and common to all the 
inhabitants of the globe. On the contrary, bashfulness, 
scepticism, religiosity are derivative feelings of the third or 
the fourth order; they are only manifested after a long and 
' painful evolution, and in consequence, their expression is 
uncertain, fugitive, variable, and but little characteristic. 

Pride is one of the most manifest and powerful of the 
affective energies. Under different forms it is found in the 
child, in the old man, in the savage, and in the illustrious 
poet; its expression is very significant and cannot be 
confused with any other, and therefore all artists, even the 
most mediocre, know how to represent a movement of 
pride, and the oldest and most superficial physiognomists 
have been able to give us a good description of the 
expression which belongs to this feeling. 

The Greek Polemon devotes two characteristic lines 
worthy of Linnzus to it— i 

** Sions of Effrontery.—Here are the signs of the impu- 
dent: open and clear eyes, raised and thick eyelids, great 


oo. 
Y 


EXPRESSION OF PRIDE, ETC. 181 


feet, a thick nose, a very upward glance, red complexion, 
sharp voice.” 

However, the definition of the proud by Giovanni Battista 
Dalla Porta is still more beautiful— 

“They have arched eyebrows which are often raised, a 
large, fleshy, and hanging stomach; they walk slowly, stop 
without reason, and stand in the street looking round 
them.” 

Mgr. Ingegneri is more prolix, but he too gives a good 
description of the expression of pride— 

*“* Men of great stature, who carry their heads high, prove 
thus thai they are prout, ambitious, bold, and arrogant. 

“In fact, this disposition of the body and the vice of pride 
have by chance a common origin. They arise, in fact, 
from the nobility of the reasonable soul, which, being 
excellent above everything else in this lower world, when 
it is appreciated at its right value disposes man to mag- 
nanimity. But it may happen that it exceeds measure in 
the esteem entertained for itself, and falls into a perverse 
and disordered appetite for pre-eminence, honours, respect ; 
it is this appetite that constitutes pride, which is for the 
human race the source of many other enormous and 
extremely odious errors. This same nobility of the soul 
is the cause of man’s holding himself vertical, and in some 
ill-balanced temperaments, where the principles which have 
caused the human body to acquire this custom are in 
excess, we see the person hold himself very straight, and 
disposed to carry his head high. In fact, nature, in dis- 
tributing her gifts, has willed that plants (which have 
neither feeling nor movement, and are wanting in the 
faculties which our soul possesses) should have their feet 
turned towards heaven and their heads sunk in the earth 
(sic/). She has given to animals a disposition differing 
more or less from this according to their degree of perfec- 
tion; she has so contrived that the most abject and the 
most vile have no feet and crawl on the earth; and to the 


182 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


less imperfect she has given legs and has raised their heads 
more or less from the soil. But as man is more perfect 
than the animals, and because he is of celestial substance, 
she has willed that his head should rise heavenwards; she 
has released him from the terrestrial heaviness which forces 


the other animals to walk bowed, and which would perhaps" 


have made him incapable of acting and of accomplishing 
the operations of the mind; finally, she has gratified him 
with an excellent temperament, which corresponds to the 
order of the elements of the world. In the world the earth, 
which by its nature is dry, is placed above the water, which 
is the cold element, and the air, which is moist, is inferior 
by its nature to fire, which is the warm element. In the 
same way, nature has willed that in the complexion of man 
the cold should be above the dry, and the warm pre- 
dominate over the moist. And from the predominance 
of heat, which is the principle of upward directed move- 
ment, it results that man has a vertical and elevated body.” 

Truly we have here a mixture of cabalism and astrology ; 
but the basis of the description is taken from the pure 
sources of nature. 

Niquetius has given us two well-drawn little pictures— 

** Superbi viri figura.—Supercilia arcuata et quee frequenter 
elevantur: os magnum; palpebree valde aperte, pectus 
latum ; metaphrenum erectum ; tardus gressus ; collum 
erectum ; humeri vibrati; oculi splendentes, magni, sal- 
ientes. 

“ Verecuadt viri figura.—Oculi humidi, non valde aperti, 
conniventes, castigatee magnitudinis, suffusee robore gene ; 
motus moderati; tarda loquela; corpus inclinatum, aures 
decenti rubore purpuratee, verecundia potissimum in oculis 
et fronte spectanda est.””! 

Ghiradelli, who, when he has not to speak ill of women, 
is reasonable, and knows how to observe, pauses a long time 


1 By the confession of Niquetius, this description is borrowed from 
Dalla Porta. 


lem Aes [oo ie ee she 


ae 


“~- 


Tt 
yy « . 


i. cs 


fat AroolVON OF PRIDE, ETC. 183 


to explain why, under the influence of pride, the eyebrows 
are raised. He follows the opinion of Pliny, who places 
the seat of pride in the eyebrows—“ Superbia alicubi con- 
ceptaculum, sed hic sedem habet; in corde nascitur, hic 
subit, hic pendet.” Further on—“ Nihil altius simulque 
abruptius invenitur in corpore.” Giovanni Bonifacio thus 
interprets what Pliny means by the words xzhil altius: 
elevated eyebrows, a sign of pride. 

Why do elevated eyebrows denote a proud man? The 
theologian affirms that, swperbia est appetitus celsitudinis per- 
verse voluntarius, and that thus pride manifests itself by 
raising the eyebrows above their normal place. 

““The vice of pride consists in wishing to be admired, 
and believing oneself more than one is by the effect of an 
arbitrary and perverse will. Thus poets, when they have 
had to describe rage and pride, have always given as its 
sign and indication arched and elevated eyebrows. Dante, 
for example, says in Canto xxxiv. of his /zferno, in the 
portrait of Lucifer— 

© S’ei fu si bel, com’ egli é ora brutto, 


E contro il suo fattore alzo le ciglia, 
Ben dee da Jui proceder ogni lutto.’ 4 


Juvenal, too, has written in his Satire V.— 


** Pauperibus miscere puer : sed forma, sed etas 
Digna supercilio, quando ad te pervenit ille?” 
and this word sugercilio is interpreted by some as meaning 
pride here. 
And the same poet, wishing to paint Cornelia, mother 


-of the Gracchi, said in his sixth satire— 


‘© Malo venusnam, quam te, Cornelia mater 
Gracchorum, si cum magnis virtutibus affers 
Grande supercilium et numeras in dote triumphos.” 


1 If he were as beautiful as he is now hideous, and yet dared to 
raise his eyebrows against his Creator, well from him may proceed all 
strife. 


184 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


However, it is very necessary to remark here that the 
elevation of the eyebrow does not always indicate pride, 
but sometimes also gravity. Thus, according to Valerius 
Maximus, Seneca had censorium supercilium—that is to say, 
an eyebrow worthy of a censor. 

Thus again, the Roman orator, wishing to paint, not the 
pride of a tyrant, but the gravity of Sextus, expresses himself 
with true Ciceronian eloguence— 

“Tanta erat gravitas in oculo, tanta frontis contractio, ut 
illo supercilio, tanquam Atlante celum, respublica niti 
videretur.” 

Albertus Magnus likewise said— 

*“‘Supercilia, que frequenti motu elevantur in altum, 
superbum hominem notant, gloriosum et audacem.” 

And commenting on the ancients, Ghiradelli adds— 

“The proud generally have a slow and heavy gait and 
straight necks; they often stop in the road and look all 
round them; their eyes are unquiet, large, clear, and 
superb. Thus Homer has painted Achilles, and Nicetas 
Chorniatus has painted Andronicus. Likewise, again, 
Michael Scott, whom I choose by preference among all 
the other physiognomists, has written excellently —“ Cilia 
arcuata multum et que frequenti motu elevantur in altum, 
significant hominem superbum, animosum, vanum, iracun- 
dum, audacem,” etc. 

But we have had enough quotations. With relation to 
expression, the affective energies which are grouped 
round self-esteem give us three different groups of expres- 
sions— 

1. Expressions of exalted or satisfied pride. 

2. Expressions of humiliated pride. 

3. Expressions of tempered pride, corrected by educa- 
tion, or by other feelings. 

Making, according to our method, the elementary analysis 
of the expression of pride, we can represent its elements in 
the following table :— 


EXPRESSION OF PRIDE, ETC. 185 


SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE EXPRESSION OF PRIDE. 


Exalted or satis- 
fied pride. 


Humiliated 
pride. 


Hypocrisy of 
satisfied self- 
esteem, 


Elevation of the eyebrows, 


a ae eA. 
35 ae TECK. 
ey. CrULK. 


22 

Glance directed upwards or towards the horizon. 

Projection of the lower lip. 

Energetic closing of the mouth. 

Expansive expression of the arms, 

Rotation of the fingers round the axis of the arm. 

Elevation of the hands above the head. 

Ample dilatation of the thorax. 

The arms resting on the pelvis or the breast in such a 
way as to increase in one manner or another the 
transverse diameter of the body, 

A gawky walk with sprawling legs. 

Laboured breathing. 

Smiles, laughter, or tears. 


Lowering of the eyebrows, 
“5 * eyelids. 

Bending the head, the neck, the trunk. 

Glance fixed on the earth ; the eye dull. 

A generally concentric expression, 

Expression of a bitter taste, 

General tendency to abase oneself, and to hide or to 
flee. 


Lowering the head. 

A very brilliant eye. 

Abasement of the person. 

Gestures of excuse, of thanks, of prayer, 

Tears and laughter alternately. 

Contraction of the lips, as though one would diminish 
the size of the mouth. 

Trembling and suppression of the voice. 


However varied and however numerous these elements of 
the expression of pride may be, they all tend to the same 
end: to augment and to raise our person if self-love is 
exalted and satisfied, to diminish and to abase it if pride is 


humiliated. 


Geometry and psychology, expression and 


language are here in perfect agreement. The English 


186 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


haughty (etymolovically, Zav¢=high) means proud, and it is 
quite evident that sufer is the root of superdia. 

A profound philologist would be able to weave all sorts 
of beautiful variations on this theme, of which I shail 
content myself with giving the general formula. It is with 
expression as with language. With all the force of our 
muscles we seek to make ourselves greater and taller than 
we are. From these two simultaneous and sometimes 
contradictory efforts very naturally results the puffed-out 
form of the expression of pride and vanity. We raise our 
eyebrows, eyelids, the upper lip, the neck, the trunk, the 
figure ; we seek to elevate all the principal and accessory 
parts of our ego, and sometimes we have recourse to the 
hatmaker and the bootmaker to aid us in this labour of 
elevation. Oh, if we could but nail a beam to the heavens 
and hoist ourselves into the empyrean itself! 

So much for elevation. As to the expansion, we inflate 
our cheeks, we dilate the thorax, we rest our hands on our 
thighs or in our armpits, we sprawl out our legs and waddle 
from right to left and wie versa, we pass our hands through 
our locks, and distend our little wisps of hair; in short, 
we seek to take up as much in width as we have gained 
in length, or in longitude what we have gained in latitude, 
as you will, according as you borrow a metaphor from 
grammar or from geography. 

Having elongated, having widened ourselves, having 
increased every possible element of our organic geometry, 
we also extend our movements: our fingers are spread as 
far apart as possible, our legs are also stretched away from 
the trunk; often we take into our hands any voluminous 
objects—handkerchiefs, papers, or books—to still further 
increase the dimensions of our limbs, to extend the horizon 
of our inflated ego. There is a characteristic manner of 
waving the handkerchief in the air, which in ninety cases 
out of a hundred bespeaks the man of pride. 

And the last term of all this lengthening, widening, and 


EXPRESSION OF PRIDE, ETC. 187 


inflation in every sense is the loud breath which results 
from its long detention for the purpose of swelling the 
cheeks and rendering the thorax sonorous, Finally, the air 
must find an exit, and it issues with a loud noise, which 
serves additionally to attract attention. 

For this reason, too, the proud generally speak loud, 
exclaim often, and employ every means of making a noise. 

One cannot be inflated with pride without despising 
something or some one, or without disdaining the whole 
human race; thus in the animated expression inspired 
by this feeling there is always a certain smile of raillery, 
which is ironical, sardonic, or simply proud. The proud 
smile is distinguished from the two others by a forward 
movement of the lower lip. This is so true that the 
muscle which serves to execute this movement has received 
the name of musculus superbus. 

Tears may often be the sign of the inner joys of vanity 
or of satisfied pride; but this is very rare; laughter is a 
more habitual sign, and between ourselves this laughter 
may still be naive, benevolent, and loud. Sometimes it 
is accompanied by signs of quasi-delirium, of transports 
and conyulsions. We have said a hundred times all 
expressions are alike and become confused when they are 
pushed to extremity. 

India-rubber balloons cannot remain eternally inflated ; 
nor is the distension of peacock, turkey, or men without its 
limits. A condition of slight and permanent inflation is the 
most ordinary expression of pride, and gives to the face a 
characteristic and lasting expression. 

Its manifestation is always the same, but feebler, less 
accentuated, so that it may be maintained by muscles 
which are accustomed to being always in a state of semi- 
contraction. Even when asleep, a man may tell the one 
who looks at him that self-love is watching. 

In a scientific work we employ the word Jvzde in the 
most general sense, and this is not the place to make a 


188 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


philological study on the synomyms of this powerful affective 
energy, of this mortal sin. It is enough for us that each 
word should represent a thing which is well-defined and 
clear to all. 

The synxomyms and the relations of pride have distinct 
names, and each has a different method of expression. 

We will review them rapidly. 

Dignity, honour, loftiness are the most beautiful and 
highest forms of pride. Far from being vices, they are 
veritable virtues. ‘The feelings of honour and of personal 
dignity are expressed rather negatively than positively. 
Often a serious face, an energetic attitude, suffice to express 
a whole world of psychical energies of the most sublime 
order. 

In haughtiness we shall find ourselves between vice and 
virtue ; the manner of expression becomes more combative, 
more resolute. In Darwin’s work Figure 1 in Plate VI. 
might express equally well a disdainful feeling and a 
movement of pride revolted by a shameful proposition. 

The habit of command, with which is always associated 
a certain degree of haughtiness or even of pride, gives 
to many generals, princes, and sovereigns a _ particular 
look and an aristocratic expression which are very difficult 
to define, but which at once strike the eye even of the 
most vulgar observer. 

We all remember the look full of majesty and authority 
which shone in the eyes of Victor Emanuel; this singular 
character is also striking in King Humbert. Eight hundred 
years of royalty naturally leave in the features of a 
family a mark which the new-comer cannot acquire at 
will, Aristocracy is one of the most natural features of 
humanity ; the democrats make history recede instead of 
advancing when they deny the most elementary laws of 
heredity and of human nature. An aristocratic bearing, 
which is always a fact of expression, is inherited and not 
acquired, 


EXPRESSION OF PRIDE, ETC. 189 


Vanity is one of the most characteristic forms of pride. 
It consists in a feeling of complacency in one’s own beauty, 
one’s own luxury, in the richness or the elegant cut of the 
garments of the wearer. It is a little pride adapted to 
little things and little men, Men, always disdainful towards 
women, would make pride and ambition the privilege of the 
strong sex and leave vanity to the weaker. In that, as in a 
hundred other cases, they take the lion’s share, and they do 
not take into account that the difference does not depend 
on sex, but on diversity of character and on the degree of 
elevation of thought. There are plenty of vain, and of 
very vain, males; and woman is also capable of pride 
and ambition. I know an excellent man who has shown 
himself a valiant soldier on the field of battle, who is 
to-day a valiant writer, and yet he has never succeeded 
in becoming a speaker of any value in the Chamber. 
While he speaks he is always looking at the ladies’ gallery, 
and takes much pains, above all, to wave his arm with a 
certain rounded suavity which will show off the beauty 
of his body and successively reveal and conceal the very 
pure profile of his face. This expression of vanity deprives 
his thought of all force, and his speech has neither action, 
efficaciousness, nor strength of feeling. It is true that 
Balzac would have awarded to this round sweep of the 
arm a Montyon prize such as he has already given to a 
movement of the skirts. 

The expression of vanity is meagre, but slightly expan- 
sive, full of repressed smiles, of secret complacency, and 
hidden malignity. The painters and poets of all time have 
always represented vanity with a mirror; for it is precisely 
before a mirror that a beautiful person and one who is 
vain of his beauty—(notice that I say a person and not 
a woman)—abandons himself most completely to the 
expression of his admiration for himself. 

Vanity is nearly always accompanied by coquetry, and 
has thus a composite expression, the aim of which is to be 


190 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


seductive, to please and to fascinate. All animals in the 
species in which the sexes are distinct are capable of 
coquetry in an amorous intention, and it would be possible 
to compile a surprising volume if one collected all the 
pictures which the animal world presents in this respect. 

The general formula of all coquetry consists in hiding or 
diminishing natural defects, in throwing good qualities into 
relief, or simulating them if they do not exist. In a 
company of men and women who have attained the period 
of their sexual maturity (or even if they have not attained, 
or have even passed it) there will not perhaps be one 
individual who does not exhibit some gesture, or utter 
some word referring to what the English happily call 
courtship. One continually gesticulates with his open and 
ungloved hand because he happens to have a very beautiful 
one; another is always drawing attention to his feet shod 
with such delicate gear, because they are extremely small. 
Countess A is always smiling, even if speaking of 
a funeral, because she has admirable teeth; and the 
Marchioness of Y , although full of piety and modesty, 
is extremely décol/etée, because her shoulders are worthy of a 
Juno. Prince X.always wears very tight trousers, even though 
it may be the fashion to wear them loose, because he has the 
legs of an Apollo; and his sister never takes off her gloves, 
even at table, because her hands are spotted. Spare me 
further enumeration, for every day you have a hundred 
opportunities of examining the expression of vanity armed 
with coquetry. 

Ambition is an affective psychical form which has 
numerous affinities with pride, but which does not possess 
any characteristic method of expression; now it borrows 
that of pride, now of resolution, now of strife, or of creative 
inspiration. Without allegories and without the artifices of 
the schools the greatest painter in the world would not be 
able to represent an ambitious man. ‘The allegories found, 
and the artifices put into execution, it is still necessary to 








/ 
4 


mere Sol OF PRIDE, ETC. . 191 


inscribe beneath, Ambition. This reminds me of a very 
mediocre monument in which a sculptor (a man otherwise 
of merit) had represented Politics, Strategy, and other 
analogous sciences, but had had to write these names below 
in golden characters. Is it possible that this great man 
did not call to mind the old story of St. Anthony and his 
pig? 

Arrogance is pride plus one thing and minus another. 
Its additional factor is coarseness, its absent factor, good 
manners. Petulance, impudence, effrontery are the worthy 
sisters of arrogance ; in proportion as delicacy and modesty 
decrease, and as vulgarity of feeling predominates, the ex- 
pression of these psychical movements becomes more and 
more degraded. 

There are gradations of forms which correspond to the 
gradations of feeling. I have been face to face with 
the kings and emperors of Europe, I have talked with 
Colliqueo, the king of Araucania, and with the cachigue of 
Paraguayans in Paraguay. All these potentates have made 
me perfectly perceive the distance between us, the abyss 
which separated them from me, but in a different manner. 
Colliqueo and the Cachique were arrogant and insolent; 
the emperor and the king were simply majestic and 
haughty. A crown must always do something ; let it be of 
gold or of parrots’ feathers, let it be the crown of a tyrant 
or of a constitutional king, it matters little, it is still a 
crown | 

Of all expressions, that of pride is the one on which 
civilised life imposes the most powerful restraints, that it 
deforms the most and seeks most to stifle. Whenever we 
allow ourselves to be self-complacent in the satisfaction of 
our pride, we induce some suffering in the self-love of others, 
and directly we express our joy too ingenuously to him who 
is praising and applauding us we inevitably inspire him 
with the desire to change his praise into blame, or his 
applause to hisses. Enthusiasm and fashion impel us to 


192 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


throw incense in the nostrils of a hero or of a dancer; but 
we desire the hero or the dancer rather to be grateful than 
proud, and to confess to owing our bravos or our garlands 
rather to our good-will than to their merit. One must go 
to Africa to see men consent to crawl on their bellies in 
approaching their chiefs, and not to take offence if he 
chooses to spit upon them. You must go to Polynesia to see 
a street paved with human beings, stretched on the ground, 
and forming the road over which the bridegroom must pass 
to the house of his bride! With us, kings themselves, 
when they enter Parliament amid a salvo of applause, 
incline their heads in token of thanks. Dramatic actors, 
placed on a level with the dancer and recalled two or three 
times, must bend low and not draw themselves up; they 
must show some confusion at so much honour instead of 
becoming elated. If an actor or a dancer raises his or her 
head, neck, or body, and stands in an ecstasy amid storms 
of applause they would probably be thought demented, 
and would certainly be hissed. On the contrary, the more 
the joy of pride is concealed the more the applause 
redoubles: nothing charms us more than modesty during 
apotheosis. Then only do we abandon ourselves sincerely 
and expansively to the swift ecstasy of enthusiasm and 
admiration. The next day we shall compensate ourselves 
for the sacrifice we have made by venomous backbiting and 
malignant thrusts. ‘Thus civilised man is constituted ; his 
nails are clipped, his teeth blunted; but with these clipped 
nails and blunted teeth he is able to extract subtle venoms 
which he inoculates under the skin of his neighbour 
with pious unction and under the hypocritical pretext of 
distributive justice. 


1 Wyatt Gill, Lz/e in the Southern Isles, p. 60. London, 


GHAPTER XV. 


EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL FEELINGS, FEAR, DISTRUST ; 
DESCRIPTION OF TIMIDITY ACCORDING TO THE OLD 
PHYSIOGNOMISTS. 


THE love of self is certainly one of the most energetic 
feelings; it is perhaps the most powerful of all, save, during 
a certain period of life, that of sexual love. But it has no 
special methods of expression. No artist in the world, no 
matter of what genius, could pretend to give us a picture 
or a statue which should make us say at the first glance— 
Here is an egoist! here is a man smitten with himself! If 
in the secrecy of our chamber we can grow complacent in 
the adoration of ourselves, this affective energy will resolve 
itself into a form of vanity, into an expression of pride or of 
concentrated joy, but these confidential pictures belong to 
the gallery of pride, of vanity, and of pleasure. If, on the 
contrary, we fear for our safety, and if we put ourselves into 
a position of defence, in that case we shall wear one of the 
many expressions of fear or of strife, but we shall not be 
able to find anything which specially characterises self-love. 
If by sophistries and subtilties we at last imagine that we 
have laid hands on an egotistical face, our discovery will 
resolve itself into a pure negation, where we shall infer the 
love of self by reason of the absolute and constant want of 
every benevolent and generous expression, 

In strict logic we might count the love of oneself 
among the personal feelings. But this pathological and 
monstrous feeling is resolved in its turn into hypochondria, 
into a general suffering of every sensible part of our being 


13 


194 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


which may lead us to despair and to suicide. I have 
studied this subject in my Physiology of Pain, and its 
principal features are reproduced in the chapter of that 
book which treats of the expression of pain. 

Between love of self, above all a concentric and centripetal 
energy, the expression of which is consequently negative, 
and fear, we find distrust, which is the beginning of fear, a 
movement of the egoism which awakens to face an imminent 
or suspected danger. The same thing may be said of 
suspicion, which is the brother of distrust, and the expres- 
sion of which is purely intellectual, with a scarcely perceptible 
tinge of preparation for defence. 

Distrust, which is the beginning of the defensive, has a 
scarcely perceptible expression, which may be reduced to 
the elevation of the eyebrow, accompanied by transverse 
wrinkles on the forehead, the elevation of the upper lip, and 
a forced contraction of the mouth. 

When we want to impart our distrust and suspicions to 
others, the expression becomes more marked, and encroaches 
on the domain of conventional language. It is then that 
we distort our faces, and especially the mouth, in such a 
way as to make them lose their natural symmetry entirely. 
We may also raise our shoulders and distort the body in 
the same sense as the features of the face; or again, we 
may shake our heads from side to side, turn up our noses, 
or finally apply the tip of the index finger to the cheek, the 
side of the nose, or the lower eyelid to pull it down. ‘This 
gesture is nearly always accompanied by a prolonged Aum, 
in the manner of the death-rattle, or of a snore. 

Here we are on twofold ground, on a frontier where the 
automatic gestures of expression are mingled with figurative 
or conventional language. Some of the facts are easily 
explained. Others remain completely obscure. 

The distortion of the face, nose, mouth—of all the body 
—demonstrates with plenty of evidence that the thing or 
person in question is neither clear nor s¢vaighi, that there is 


EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL FEELINGS. 195 


something false, that something is going crooked. ‘Thus we 
say to turn up the nose is a sign of want of esteem, and 
hence of confidence. Still simpler is the explanation of 
the shaking of the head and of the numerous signs which 
serve to express a negation. 

The elevation of the eyebrow indicates that we desire to 
open our eyes wide in order to see an obscure thing better ; 
and, in my opinion, the same meaning attaches to the 
movement of the forefinger to pull down the lower eyelid. 
This gesture, which seems obscure to many people, seems 
to me only desirous of saying, “Here it behoves to keep 
one’s eyes wide open!” 

some have perhaps gone very far to seek what lay quite 
near to them when they have attempted to explain this 
expression with some subtilty—‘‘ Look at this man; he 
squints, or is one-eyed: cave a signaits, and all that follows.” 

It is more difficult to explain why distrust or suspicion is 
also manifested by applying the finger to the cheek or on 
the nose. Probably these gestures are synonymous with 
the former of putting the finger on the lower eyelid. For 
my part, this last gesture would be the characteristic normal 
expression ; the others would be its variations or synonyms. 
Expression often elaborates the same motive with diverse 
variations, and even in the most constant and most irresist- 
ible expressions we have many equivalent forms which 
alternate and are substituted one for the other. 

Distrust, become a habit, often impresses a permanent 
character on the face, which may be considered as that of 
timidity. It is seen in all its force in the unfortunate 
insane, afflicted with the delusion of persecution. They 
have an uncertain way of looking round them; their eye- 
brows are raised, or perhaps the one raised and the other 
lowered ; their look is vacillating from time to time, their 
lips contract, and they shake their heads, or perhaps they 
assume an attitude of attention, as though they were 
listening to real or imaginary noises. 


196 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


This is disease; but outside the specially pathological 
domain there is also an expression of timidity characterised 
by diverse negative marks, such as the absence of lively joy, 
of tendency to strife, and certain positive signs, as the 
uncertainty of the facial movements and the disposition to 
blush easily. 

We shall speak of this phenomenon, which plays a large 
part in expression, when concerning ourselves with the 
modesty which engenders on its own account a particular 
form, and one very characteristic of timidity. 


It would be very useful to be able to determine, by the 


physiognomy of a man, his degree of timidity, and to 
measure thereby his want of courage. Who knows how 
many national mishaps, how many humiliations, might be 
avoided if science gave us the means of making such a 
diagnosis? Unfortunately, beyond the features which we 
have traced, nothing certain can be said, unless we give play 
to fancy and attempt to imprison clouds in bags. ‘This 
poverty and this modesty of contemporary physiognomical 
science have succeeded to a period of overweening pre- 
sumption which to-day makes us laugh. ‘There is not an 
old book which does not give a sure receipt for the 
discernment of timid men. Here is that of Niquetius— 

“ Timiadt virt figura.—Ad mulieres, cervos, cuniculos, 
lepores, damas et temperiem frigidam refertur occiput 
cavum; color pallidus, sublividus, citrinus vel niger, oculi 
imbecilles et qui frequenter nictant, pallidi, stupidi; 
pilus mollis; extrema parva; lumba imbecilles; collum 
longum, gracile, pingue; pectus debile, carnosum; vox 
acuta, remissa, tremula; os parvum; mentum rotundum; 
labia patua; tibis, crura carnosa, sed nimine ostea; 
manus longze et subtiles ; pedes parvi, inarticulati; mos qui 
est in facie meestus,””4 

The same author, in other parts of his work, explains 
how guibus capilli surrectiores timidi—coxe carnose timt- 


1 Niquetii, of. czt., p. 318. 


A — 


ed thee 


EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL FEELINGS. 197 


dum denotant—crura parva timidorum propria—aquibus 
crura pervertuntur timidi sunt—manus subtiles et longe 
timidorum propria, etc. 

In all the pictures of this sort the mode of procedure is 
perceived ata glance. The author, like every one else, has 
made the surprising discovery that women are more timid 
than men; he paints us the portrait of a woman under 
the pretext of painting a timid man, and the game is 
played. 

It is singular that all the old authors attributed soft, that 
is to say, fine hair to the timid man. 

Ghiradelli assures us “that fine and soft hair most 
frequently denote a fearful person,” and he thinks it is very 
natural that it should be so, since the stag, goat, and sheep 
have soft coats. Further on this physiognomist does not 
fear to seek signs and indications among the birds, because, 
as Aristotle teaches, ‘“‘all that have plumage are timid; 
for example, the quail and all gregarious birds, this habit 
being a manifest indication of their timidity.”? 

Mgr. Ingegneri also says that smooth and soft hair is a 
sign of timidity. 

“In fact,” he says, ‘‘it denotes a cold and moist tempera- 
ment, for softness principally arises from cold and moisture, 
and as effects resemble causes, hair preserves the pre- 
dominant quality of the body whence it takes its birth. 
In moist and cold temperaments where heat is feeble there 
is not much of animal spirits, and as it is a principle that 
contraries fight against each other, they are weak. In 
imminent dangers, the soul, to fortify its courage, recalls its 
blood and animal spirits from all parts towards the viscera 
as to a centre, and the extremities are abandoned. But 
just as the spirit flies suddenly from the exterior parts to 
the interior, so externally also the man takes to flight. And 
there we have the nature of fear.”? 

1 Ghiradelli, of. cz¢., p. 7. 
2 Giovanni Ingegneri, Natural Physiognomy, p. 342. 


198 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


What philosophy! what psychology! and what cabalistic 
jargon! | 

For the good prelate, a small head is also significant of 
timidity, and naturally he finds an excellent reason for 
this— . 

‘In fact, our acts are the execution of the thoughts of 
the soul; and when the animal spirits do not acquit them- 
selves of their functions well, the soul cannot discern the © 
truth of external things, nor be assured of their condition ; 
then it fears to act, and keeps to no resolve.” 

For Dalla Porta also the timid man has ‘‘a soft skin, a 
bent body, very thin muscles to his legs, a pale complexion, 
weak and blinking eyes. The extremity of his body is 
feeble and without force ; his legs are slender (and women?), 
his hands slender and long, his loins small (and women ?) 
and weak,” etc. 

Ingegneri and Ghiradelli agree that a very black pupil 
(sic) *‘certainly denotes a timid man, because such eyes 
are nearly always the indication of a timid soul. In fact, 
their origin is a superabundance of aqueous humour and 
want of animal spirits, and this is a sign that the natural 
heat is diminished, and that the temperament is removed 
from the suitable temperature, and allows the cold and the 
moist, which are the principles of fear, to predominate.” 

All these astrological divagations are yet nothing in 
comparison with a tirade of the same Ghiradelli, where 
this eminent Vespertine academician, forgetting that he isa 
Bolognese, and born in a town celebrated for centuries for 
the beauty and amiability of its women, puts us on our 
guard against beautiful coral lips. According to him, the 
smaller and more bewitching they are, the more they denote 
timidity, and a whole collection of vices and of perversity 
which spring from fear. Here is a specimen from this 
ungallant author— 

‘“Read and re-read these short but veracious lines, all 


1 Giovanni Ingegneri, Mat. Physiog., p. 341. 


EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL FEELINGS. 199 


_ you who allow your hearts to be seduced by the beauty of 
women and by their eyes. Take the trouble to inscribe 
my words on your minds, as on an eternal marble, for I am 
going to show in life, as in a clear mirror, the error into 
which you fall, the iniquity that you commit, the danger 
that you create for yourselves with your own hands, when 
you become the insensate pursuers of a beauty, more fleeting 
than time, more ephemeral than a shadow, more unstable 
than the mind, and sooner faded than the flowers. But lend 
me yet more attention, you who adore as holy relics a little 
mouth and two delicate lips of coral, who print thereon your 
kisses, and thus a thousand times an hour plunge your 
soul into a living sepulchre. We allow that a mouth of 
small dimensions, adorned with two little curved rubies, is 
a feature of beauty in a woman; but we will not admit that 
the sweetness of the kisses and the suavity of the words that 
you love to enjoy will not be accompanied by bitterness. 
It is not honey that you drain from these kissed and 
re-kissed lips; it is a venom which penetrates to the soul, 
and living, slays it miserably with love.” 

And Ghiradelli, after having made us understand that 
small lips denote a disposition to fear, grows still warmer 
against the poor daughters of Eve— 

“If this fear were the only passion of woman, the evil 
would not be great; but it is not thus; for so many faults 
spring from this that to enumerate them this whole volume 
would not suffice [note that it contains 628 pages in 4to]. 
So cold a humour has elected its domicile in the feminine 
brain that it renders the woman slothful to act.” 

To-day we are more gallant than Ghiradelli; we no 
longer experience the same horror for mouths of small 
dimensions, adorned with two little rounded rubies, But, 
alas! we can no longer divine, by the bare sight of a face, if 
it must lead us to the shame of Lissa or to the glories of 
Palermo and of Volturno. 


CHAPTERWEV iE 
THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT. 


WHEN thought is not accompanied by pleasure or by pain, 
by any feeling or emotion, the expression characteristic of 
it is but slightly marked and very concentric. Still this 


does not prevent the labour of the brain possessing a ~ 


genuine expression proper to itself. 

Intellectual expression may, by its different movements, 
denote either the intensity of thought, or its nature, or a 
certain moment of its activity; or even it may accompany 
with sympathetic rhythm the movement of the grey matter 
which thinks. Such are the diverse functions of intellectual 
expression. They must be studied consecutively; and 
afterwards, when once the analytic work is completed, it 
will be possible to co-ordinate the collected materials, and 
to point out certain laws in a domain which is one of the 
least explored of physiognomy. In old authors we find 
cabalistic descriptions of the intelligent and of the stupid 
man; in more recent physiologists we find some good 
studies on attention and reflection; but I believe that no 
book presents a complete view of all the phenomena of 
expression which accompanies the exercise of thought. 

To quickly demonstrate the rapidity with which the 
lacunze left by the ignorance of the past accumulate, we 
must compare Plate 2 of Lebrun’s work, in which a¢tention 
is represented, with the beautiful monograph of the same 
phenomenon which Paolo Riccardi of Modena has recently 
given. 


Lebrun shows us a face, drawn with much art, but which - 


1 Paolo Riccardi, Studio sull’ Attenzione. 


F ‘eu; 


THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT. 201 


might represent just as well suspicion or desire. His 
analytic diagnosis is limited to three lines— 

“The effects of attention are to lower the eyelids and 
make them approach the side of the nose, to turn the 
pupils to the object which causes it, to open the mouth, and 
especially the upper part, to slightly lower the head, and to 
render it fixed without any remarkable alteration.” 

Here, however, as an introduction to our studies, is a 
synoptical table— 


SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE EXPRESSION OF 
THOUGHT. 


Contraction of the corrugators of the eyebrows, 
Fixation of the eye. 
Erratic contractions of all the ocular muscles, 
: Static immobilisation of all the muscles of the face. 
tractions and! pyasgerated opening of the eye. 
relaxations of} Closing, or semi-closing, of the eye. 
the face. Dropping of the under jaw. 
Extreme elevation of one eyebrow only. 
Partial or total convulsions of the facial muscles. 


Muscular con- 


Contraction of 


the trunk. ee 


{estat immobilisation of all the trunk, 
Partial or total convulsions, 


Scratching the head, forehead, or nose. 

Touching the hair. 

Striking the forehead or holding the head in one or 

both hands. 

Stroking the cheeks or chin. 

ee ove. Vigorously rubbing the eyes. 
Shaking the head. 

ments of the : : : 

fone Making rhythmical gestures with arms or hands, 

’ Making rhythmical gestures with feet or hands, 

An incessant and rhythmical movement of the legs. 
Closing up the ears tightly with both hands, 


Sympathetic 
and most fre- 
quently rhyth- 


From the first moment that the cerebral cells begin to 
think, their activity never ceases until we breathe our last. It 
probably persists even during sleep, and those who imagine 


202 PH YVSIOGNOMY. 


that they do not dream have only forgotten by the morning 
the shadowy thoughts of the night. Awaken them suddenly, 
and call their attention to the state of their consciousness at 
this precise moment. Nearly all will tell you that they were 
dreaming. I have often made this experiment on myself 
and on others, and it has always given me the same result. 

This continuity of thought is depicted on our countenance 
in a slight expression which is almost imperceptible, precisely 
because it is permanent and is confused with other constant 
characteristics which distinguish the face of the living from 
that of the dead. A certain vivacity of the eyes, a certain 
promptitude of the facial muscles to contract, are the 
fundamental features of every intelligent face, and when 
these traits are wanting we say that we have a stupid face 
before us. We shall return to this subject when treating of 
the criteria which may guide us in appreciating the intel- 
lectual and moral value of a human face.} 


1 Lavater, in the fourth volume of his great Physiognomical Bible, 
has given us many very beautiful drawings of stupid people, after 
nature or after Hogarth. It seems incredible that with a few strokes 
of the pen, which would not cover the surface of a penny, it should be 
possible to depict so unmistakably idiocy and stupidity. 

According to the celebrated Swiss physiognomist, the most striking 
characteristics of stupidity are— 

(a) An absolutely vertical forehead. 

(2) An excessively long forehead. 

(c) A forehead which projects more or less above. 

(d) A forehead which retreats abruptly, and which is convex near 
the eyebrows. 

(e) A nose which is much curved below the middle of the face. 

(/) An exaggerated distance between the nose and mouth. 

(eg) A soft and hanging lower lip. 

(2) The relaxation or wrinkles of the chin and of the jaws. 

(z) Very small eyes, the whites of which are scarcely seen, especially 
when they are associated with a large nose, and the whole lower part 
of the face is massive and the eyes surrounded by small and very deep 
wrinkles. 

(k) The head thrown back and disfigured by a double goitre, 
especially when one of these reaches towards the cheek. 


Pee ALRESSION OF THOUGHT. 203 


The expression of the intellect is centred in the head, the 
principal seat of thought, and in the eye, which is its 
principal instrument. ‘To convince ourselves of this, it is 
enough to compare the face of a blind man without eyes 
with that of a blind man who has eyes incapable of 
sight. The first always appears more stupid than the 
second, Although with practice we succeed in interpreting 
the expression of the muscles of the mouth which is 


(2) An oblique and affected smile, of which one cannot get rid, and 
which has become a habit, may be unhesitatingly considered as the 
indication of a false nature, of advanced insanity, or at least of 
idiotic malignity. 

(m) Excessively rounded or too closely united forms give an air of 
stupidity to a face, and in this case the reality nearly always corre- 
sponds to the appearance. 

(z) Flat noses with very narrow or very wide nostrils, and the nose 
disproportionately long to the rest of the face, generally suggest a low 
intelligence. 

** Involuntary contortions and convulsive movements of the mouth, 
vibration, rigidity, or excessive softness of the flesh, flattened and 
rounded contours, features too much or too little accentuated, too 
much tension or relaxation, an odd mixture of delicacy and triviality, 
in a word, disproportions of all sorts, are so many imperfections or signs 
of tmperfection ; they are at once ¢he sign and the thing signified.” 

Although it is Lavater who writes, what uncertainty in the strokes, 
what cabalism and astrology! There is not a line which is not 
contradicted elsewhere, although in each line there is some truth. 

The definition of the mediocre man, which he gives further on, is 
happier (Fig. iv. p. 16)— 

** Every individual who does not strike us in some way, who neither 
attracts nor repels us, who neither wearies nor charms us, who does not 
make himself either welcome or detested, who is neither rich enough 
to give nor powerful enough to despoil, who leaves everything in its 
place, who produces nothing himself and has not enough energy to 
steal the productions of others, makes one of the numerous class of 
the mediocre.” 

Certainly, he who knows how to draw such a portrait of mediocre 
men is not himself a mediocre man, although he may add—‘“ These 
mediocrities are absolutely indispensable to maintain, consolidate, and 
complete the order of creation. Only the insensate can despise them, 
the impious only and the wicked can look on them as useless. . ...” 


204 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


substituted for the expression of the eyes, a face without 
eyes makes one afraid, and recalls almost too nearly that 
of a corpse. 

If it were necessary to limit to the least possible space 
the field of the expression of thought, if it were necessary to 
reduce it to its principal centre, I should confine it to the 
space of a few square centimetres which stretches above the 
eyebrows and between them; it is precisely there that are 
manifested those vertical wrinkles so well studied by Darwin, 
and which constitute the act of wrinkling the eyebrows. 
These, by the contraction of the superciliary muscles, are 
approximated and lowered, while at the same time two 
more or less deep folds are formed between them. On the 
contrary, in suffering, the internal extremities of the two 
eyebrows rise and many transverse wrinkles are formed. 

The muscle which wrinkles the eyebrows was called by 
Darwin the muscle of reflection, and although his theories 
do not stand criticism, yet it is true that the first gesture of 
intense attention and of reflection consists in wrinkling the 
eyebrows, and that this movement has been observed in the 
Australians, the Kaffirs, the Malays, the Hindus, and the 
Guarinis. For Darwin the origin of this characteristic 
gesture is very clear, because it recalls the. first impressions 
of disgust, and because it is uncomfortable and even painful 
to observe and reflect for a certain time. ‘There may also, 
according to him, be a phenomenon of atavism here—a 
legacy from remote time when it was necessary to look 
into the distance to perceive one’s prey and to put oneself 
on guard against a danger. 

This explanation, although ingenious, is probably a little 
strained. I believe, on the contrary, that we have simply 
to do with a fact of sympathy by contiguity, just as we 
have in sexual and gastronomical emotions, facts of 
expression due to sympathy, which are manifested in the 
muscles near to the centres of emotion, without these move- 
ments having any direct utility in the satisfaction of our 


on’ 


oe ae i, 


LHE EXPRESSION OF THOUGAT. 205 


needs. ‘To me the act of wrinkling the eyebrows has the 
same value as that of opening our eyes wide when we hear 
some beautiful piece of poetry read. 

Attention is the intense and visible direction of one of 
our senses towards an external object, or again the invisible 
direction of the nervous centres towards a phenomenon of 
the visceral or of the psychical life. I shall reserve the 
word a/tention for the senses or for the facts of splanchnic 
or general sensibility, and that of veflection for the examina- 
tion of psychical facts. 

We can bring attention to bear on any sensation of 
taste, smell, or touch; but the expression is much more 
marked when the eye and ear are the organs employed to 
collect the impressions from the outer world. 

In visual attention the body leans forward, the eyes are 
fixed, and all the muscles of the neck and of the trunk seem 
to have no function but that of directing the organ of sight, 
and of bringing it near to that which we wish to see well. 

In auditory attention, after having advanced the head in 
the direction whence the sound proceeds, it is odd that we 
lean it on the shoulder (oftenest on the left shoulder) as if 
we would listen with one ear only. 

This gesture, which is very characteristic, and which may 
be observed every evening at the theatre, would deserve to 
be well studied. It would be interesting to see if each of 
us puts his best ear nearest to the sound, or if, on the 
contrary, he tries to have the sensation of a single acoustic 
organ, as happens often for the eye. 

The expression of attention relating to the three other 
inferior senses is uncertain, although it often affects a local 
character; often it is modelled on that of ear or eye, 
although there is nothing to do with seeing or with 
hearing. 

Inner attention may only be a concentration of conscious- 
ness on a visceral or psychical phenomenon, or it may rise 
to comparison, to reflection, in a word, to thought. In 


206 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


these very different cases expression is nearly the same. A 
hypochondriac, who watches the movements of his intes- 
tines and of his heart, differs little in appearance from a 
philosopher who is meditating on the consciousness of the 
ego. 

As soon as reflection has become intense and profound, 
expression becomes almost entirely negative, as if all our 
energy must be concentrated in the brain, and we do not 
retain sufficient to contract a small group of muscles, or 
even a single muscle. In fact, the superciliary muscle 
relaxes and the look wanders without fixing itself on any 
object. We look up or down, and these two opposed 
directions have exactly the same end, namely, of isolating 
ourselves from the external world which surrounds us. 
Darwin, Donders, and Gratiolet have studied this fact which 
we may express by the term, an adsent look. Let us remark 
on this connection that the impropriety of the term could 
not be greater. We say a man is absent when he pays 
attention to nothing, and again we call the look of a man 
who is plunged in profound meditation, absent. And yet 
we are always singing the praises of language, this pale and 
uncertain shadow of our thought! 

The more intense thought becomes, the more all inner- 
vating force deserts the muscles. It is then that the mouth 
partially opens, then entirely, and finally the lower jaw 
drops. ‘Then the face assumes the appearance of stupidity, 
furnishing us with yet another example that in all forms of 
expression extremes touch and mingle. 

But directly thought is disengaged from the cerebral 
centres and is manifested by one of its powerful centrifugal 
currents, and especially by word, then the expression passes 
from concentric to eccentric, and we witness phenomena 
of expression ensue, which in our table we have enumerated 
under the rubric of sympathetic and most frequently rhythmic 
movements of the limbs. 

1 Darwin, of. céZ., p. 229. 


THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT. 207 


It is then that we bring the upper limbs into play, and 
accompany the cerebral action by gestures of very various 
form, but which always tend to give rhythm to the thought, 
by marking, after the manner of commas and full stops, the 
most striking parts of the discourse. No one in the world 
(except he is making an effort for that special purpose) 
could speak without gesticulation, and many eloquent and 
impassioned orators would die of suffocation if we com- 
pelled them to make a speech with their limbs bound to 
their bodies. Even the lower limbs take part in this 
_ accompaniment, and many people could neither speak nor 
write unless they were to keep their legs in movement or 
beat with the feet. 

This expression is quite different from that which consists 
in striking the forehead, playing with the hair, caressing the 
chin, or scratching the nose. It is probable that all these 
movements have as their end to aid the brain and to 
facilitate cerebral work. ‘The friction of the skin of the 
face might contribute to the same result by means of a 
peripheral excitement of those nerves nearest to the brain. 
I am so much the more inclined to adopt this explanation 
because it is especially the scalp and the forehead that is 
rubbed, and much less often the nose, cheeks, and chin. 
That a mechanical impulse to the brain may facilitate its 
labour appears proved by the fact that many people can 
only think actively when driving, riding, or boating. Each 
brain has its special needs, and in all men the end of 
intellectual expression is especially to aid its work. If we 
pass from analysis to the synthetic study of intellectual 
expression, we find some pictures which in their diverse 
expressions represent special forms of cerebral labour. 
Here are the principal— 

Attention 


Reflection } atceay examined in our analytical table. 
Meditation 


Remembrance.—The look is fixed upwards or downwards 


Sy 


208 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


and the eyes closed. ‘The forehead is energetically rubbed 
with the palm of the hand, or struck in diverse ways. Here 
the influence of percussion to awaken molecular movements 
in the brain is quite evident. 

The Labour of Speech.—The face lights up; the eyes, the 
neck, the trunk, the arms move sympathetically with the 
thought expressed ; now the gesture marks the pauses and 
colours the ideas ; now it plays the parts of the chorus in 
antique tragedy. The word is the principal person, the 
gestures are the chorus which follows the thought to 
reinforce and to complete it. No one can be a great 
orator without knowing how to direct his gestures well; 
and in some eloquent men gesture is still more effective 
and more beautiful than speech. Disagreement between 
speech and gesture is one of the most irritating manifesta- 
tions of mediocrity of mind, and often it is enough to show 
us that a speech has been committed to memory without 
being understood. On the other hand, in those who speak 
with difficulty, gesture is too often before the word, it 
seems as though it would drag the latter from its narrow 
confines and struggle to find a new issue. 

Mechanical, Artistic, and Scientific Labour. — These 
different forms of intellectual labour are also differently 
expressed. A man devoted to mechanical work and 
a sculptor express inner labour almost exactly in the same 
way, and in the muscles of the hand and of the mouth a 
special expression is concentrated which I will call plastic. 
There are certain features of the hand, almost indefinable, 
which are peculiar to the sculptor. It seems as though 
the stone under his hands lives and speaks ; the eloquent 
shorthand of their movements may make us understand 
how the form thought of in the artist’s brain passes 
through his fingers to be incarnated in the plastic and 
docile matter which is modelled under his inspiration. 

In the painter, on the other hand, expression is related 
to the eyes rather than to the hand or mouth; the eyes 


THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT. 209 


anxiously seek for perspectives, colours, and figures which 
may correspond to the inner thought. 

Scientific work is too varied to have a single method of 
expression ; it is generally expressed by a mixture—asser- 
tion and meditation. But it. is considerably modified, 
according to the instruments used in the search of truth. 

Poetic or Imaginative Work.—In this work imagination 
and the emotions often play a great part; thus its ex- 
pression derives its force and its warmth from these special 
conditions; also the intensity of the energy disengaged is 
great enough to suffice in itself to give the expression an 
expansive and eccentric character. Mediocre men, who 
have never understood what inspiration means, are the only 
ones who believe that it is possible to write a maniera, and 
to move others without having been moved oneself. 

Old Horace, who had a long experience of art, pro- 
nounced the ostracism of these gentlemen long centuries 
since; sz vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipst tibt, he 
wrote. Every classical page, whether in verse or in prose, 
which makes us weep or which leads into higher and ideal 
regions, was written by a hand trembling with emotion and 
under the inspiration of the god who disturbed and fluttered 
the entrails of the creator. 

I would almost say that all artistic and scientific labour, 
if it rises to the height of creation, has its peculiar character 
of expression, which is to be measured by the intensity and 
not by the nature of the emotion. There are some 
expressions which only belong to genius, and if we had 
a photometer which could measure the light issuing from 
the eye, we might perhaps judge of the value of a statue, 
of a picture, of a poem, or of a book by the vividness of 
the light that gleams in the pupil of the artist or the 
writer. 

I once employed a very coarse sort of photometer to 
discover if a young man among my friends had shut him- 
self up in his room to occupy himself with some literary 

14 


210 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


work which had to be presented before a meeting. I 
suddenly called him for an affair of importance. Directly 
he issued from his voluntary prison his inspired look and 
inflamed face revealed to me what I wanted to know. It 
would be easier for a woman to hide a happy love than for 
a man of genius to hide the god who possesses him. 

The expression of creative genius is one of the most 
beautiful and the most sublime which humanity presents. 
That art may represent it, the artist must himself be a man 
of genius. We may all experience rage or pleasure, despair 
and love; but genius is the privilege of a few, and the 
gleam of the creative artist’s eye is a jewel before which 
the brilliancy of all the diamonds and sapphires in the 
world pales. 

Lavater, a profound observer, the friend of several men 
of genius, and perhaps himself a man of genius, wrote 
some excellent pages on this subject, of which I should 
like to give the reader an example before concluding this 
chapter. 

“For the rest, whatever genius may be, its character and 
nature will always be best revealed by the eye. Look for 
it in the look properly so called, in the fire which animates 
it, but above all the drawing of the upper eyelid, considered 
in profile. All other distinctive signs being absent, I shall 
always hold to that which has never deceived me. I do not 
consider that I have looked at a man until I have noted 
this contour. If this single feature is positive and decisive, 
all the rest matters very little to me. If sometimes it so 
happens that I have not the time or the opportunity to 
study a physiognomy well, I at least observe the upper eye- 
lid. Often no more than this is necessary to measure 
approximately, but with sufficient exactitude, the intellectual 
faculties of a child, in spite of my ordinary repugnance 
to form a judgment on a face which is not completely 
developed. ... 

‘One word more on the look of a man of genius. First I 


THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT. art 


shall point out a peculiarity which is neither very frequent 
nor very marked, and which is the more difficult to 
reproduce in drawing on account of its rarity. In addition 
to those gleams of fire, those penetrating and rapid flashes 
which may be explained in a certain manner by the con- 
formation of the eye, that of the man of genius has 
emanations. Whether these emanations are real, like those 
which escape from luminous bodies, or whether they only 
result from the movement of that matter which we call 
light, a magnetic or electric fluid, it is not the less true that 
the eye of genius seems to have emanations acting physically 
and directly on other eyes. I do not speak of substantial 
emanations, which would be an absurdity. I still less 
pretend to determine the nature of these emanations ; 
but I refer them to a circumstance of fact, which has 
become proverbial, which is confirmed by experience, 
and which can only be again called into doubt if we 
admit a difference between colours. If it is true that 
every body reflects light in a manner peculiar to itself, 
which retains its essence, or at least recalls it, by a 
certain affinity, it must be that every eye gives to its 
rays the direction and vibrations proper to it, and con- 
sequently the rays which issue from the eye of a man of 
genius may produce stronger sensations than those from 
that of an ordinary man. I find again the indication of 
this vivid look in the portraits of Cardinal Retz, of Van 
Dyck, and of Raphael. The look of genius with all its 
fire is irresistible, miraculous, divine. All those who have 
been struck by it bend the knee before it; they lower 
their eyes and worship. 

“True genius in all its strength sheds light wherever its 
look falls: it dominates all whither its steps turn ; it attracts 
and repels at will; it can do all that it will and it will not 
all that it can. The summit of elevation reached, it believes 
itself small because it sees above its own sphere a world of 
geniuses of higher forces and greater effects: the higher 


a - aS ior ee ¥ 
7 YS a tees a et a 
; + 








212 | PHYSIOGNOMY. 


it rises the more it discovers the immensity of the s 
which still remain for it to cross,” 4 
For my part, I dare affirm, after a long experience, 
men of genius may have existed ugly as Atsop and beau’ 
as Raphael or Goethe; but all have had a fiery, indefing 
look which is never met with in an ordinary man, and 
which seem to be concentrated all the enthusiasms of 
all the splendour of light, all the energy of oa and 

will. 
1 Lavater, of, cét. and iv. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


REPOSE AND ACTION, DISQUIETUDE, IMPATIENCE, EXPECTA- 
TION, DESIRE. 


CHARACTERS OF EXPRESSION ACCORDING TO AGE, SEX, TEMPERA- 
MENT, CHARACTER, EDUCATION. 


EXPRESSION does not only serve to express pleasure and 
pain, love and hatred: it may also be translated into a 
general condition which relates neither to health nor to 
sickness, but rather to a particular condition of our sensibility 
of our psychical forces. It is thus that looking at a man 
we can say whether he is resting or preparing to act; that 
he is disturbed or impatient, that he is expecting or desires. 
As life is a continual succession of changes of conditions, it 
is almost impossible that a countenance should express 
nothing in particular. This is so elementary a truth that a 
child standing before a statue will ask, What does this 
man or woman mean? And when we find no answer to 
this inevitable question, we remain discontented and per- 
plexed, and after recognising the impossibility of satisfying 
it, we say with a certain contempt, Here is a beautiful 
statue, but it has no expression. How would it be pos- 
- sible that a human creature should tell us nothing either 
of his past, or of his present, or of his hopes or desires 
for the future P 

To my mind, this is the chief difference between the 
works of the Greek sculptors and those of the moderns. 
In the former I always find an expression, even though it 
may be simply the expression of life. I see the muscles 
palpitate under the skin. In the others I only see the 


214 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


skin: the muscles do not exist, or say nothing. To con 
vince yourself that this is so, you have only to look at the 
Venus of Medici or of Milo, and afterwards at a Venus of 
Canova or of Thorwaldsen, who are yet those among the 
moderns, the two who have most zealously studied the 
ancient masters. An abyss separates these masterpieces, 
because we have before us two different pages from the 
history of art. Of course it must be understood that I take 
for purposes of comparison only those statues which do not 
express violent emotions, and not those which present 
_ strong contractions, convulsive spasms, or an exaggerated 
expression. In these latter, even the most mediocre 
sculptor is obliged to put something under the skin of his 
statue which shall move, palpitate, shall proclaim aloud that 
which the artist has wished or believed himself to have 
expressed. ‘The ancients cared neither for contortions nor 
for spasms ; but they knew how to make the statue of a man 
or of a woman express a multitude of things in a language 
the secret of which modern artists seem to have lost. Let 
us hope that some day it will be recovered! The beautiful 
human being, even in passion, is so beautiful in itself: it 
can say so much! Never, to the end of all time, will the 
eyes of the sons of men tire of admiring the Venus of Milo, 
and that without any need of stimulating our luxury or 
awakening our tenderness. Life in repose—calm, serene, 
contented in itself—presents so many and such tranquil 
expressions of beauty that it can never be exhausted. 
Therefore I contemplate with increasing admiration the 
beautiful statue of the Shunamite, in which my excellent 
friend, the eminent sculptor, Adelaide Pandiani Maraini, 
has represented the beautiful captive of Solomon quitting 
the gilded palace of her master to return to her shepherd. 
Here there is no painful or vulgar emotion, no strained 
contraction of the muscles: the whole being, in the 
general attitude of its expression, seems to proclaim 
aloud the words of the Bible—JZ seek him whom my 


REPOSE AND ACTION. 215 


soul loves. The whole body, head, neck, and eyes are 
strained towards a point which draws and fascinates her. 
With the left hand she modestly raises the hem of her 
garment to avoid stumbling, and she opens the right as 
though she would already touch and caress the friend of her 
heart. Regarded in the light of the science of expression, 
it is one of the most habitual and simple of attitudes; in 
the light of the esthetic, it is a reminiscence of Greek art, 
so Olympian in its calm, so serene in its incomparable 
tranquillity. 

Few expressions are so general as those of vepose and of 
action. In this case the face is less significant than the 
whole attitude of the body, which is disposed either for the 
relaxation or the contraction of the muscles. 

It is impossible to rest well standing ; thus the expression 
of repose only occurs when one is sitting or lying. The 
more the body approaches the perfectly horizontal the 
more significant is the expression of repose and laziness. 

Just as before shutting up an instrument in its case we 
fold it up, so, as it seems, the man who is about to rest 
bends his head upon his neck, and the different parts of 
his arms and legs seem to double up in turn upon them- 
selves. ‘The elbows rest upon the knees, and the head 
on the palms of the hands, 

Thus we reduce muscular contraction as much as pos- 
sible, and we leave the work of keeping us in the sitting 
posture only to the most powerful muscles, which are nearly 
all situated in the hinder part of the body. But if fatigue 
is greater, and the need of repose more imperative, a large 
number of the muscles must cease to work. Then we quit 
the sitting posture for the semi-horizontal or horizontal, 
passing through several stages, first seeking supports for the 
lower limbs, then for one arm, then for both, and finally for 
the whole trunk and the shoulders. 

The hammocks of the tropics, the bamboo seats of India 
—so luxurious and cool—all our beds and our sofas lend 


216 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


themselves to these different positions and to all these 
degrees of repose and muscular relaxation. The variety of 
form of all these articles of furniture has been suggested 
by muscular experience, and also by the difference of 
climates and the degrees of indolence in different races. 

The most intense expression of repose is almost entirely 
negative; it is confounded with that of sleep, which is 
supreme rest, since consciousness itself ceases to labour. 
The expression of sleep is very characteristic, but every 
one may feign it. The commonplace artist alone leaves 
us in doubt whether he intended to represent vefose, 
slumber, or death, The great artists can make us under- 
stand the degree of fatigue, and if the relaxation of the 
muscles which slacken is associated with pain or pleasure. 
There is voluptuous repose, and repose mingled with 
exhaustion ; there is the repose from labour and that of 
idleness. The artist who can observe nature expresses all 
these shades. 

The expression of action is diametrically opposed to that 
of repose. Even before a struggle is commenced or a 
resolution taken, the body which was drawn together seems 
to open out, and set its joints, and to prepare for work. 
You see the neck pulled up, the head forsake its supports, 
the arm raised, and the trunk upreared; the lying is 
abandoned for the sitting posture, then this for the stand- 
ing. Even if one remains lying, a strong contraction of 
the trunk, or a sudden movement of the neck, which raises 
the head, suffices to express the action about to begin, or 
in preparation. 

Still the most characteristic of all these movements is the 
firm closing of the mouth. ‘This fact has attracted the 
attention of all those who have written on physiognomy and 
on expression.! 

1 Darwin, of. cit., p. 2353; C. Bell, Anatomy of Expression, p. 190; 


Gratiolet, De da Physiognomie, p. 118; Piderit, Amik und Physiog- 
nomik, p. 79. 





REPOSE AND ACTION. 217 


The movement of closing the mouth is a constant and 
significant sign, that of determination on or preparation for 
a struggle; thus those with large and prominent chins are 
deemed obstinate and firm, and, on the contrary, those with 
small and retreating chins feeble and hesitating. There is 
a great deal of truth in this popular belief, whether it be 
because the chin is one of the progressive characters which 
distinguish man from the apes, or because obstinate and 
pertinacious people are frequently called on to close the 
mouth and push forward the chin. 

We close the mouth before making an effort, and enlarge 
the thorax with a deep inspiration. 

I do not think that this is done, as Gratiolet argues, to 
retard the circulation, but rather to give a solid point of 
support to certain muscles which are attached to them, and 
to amass a good provision of oxygen in view of the con- 
sumption of muscular energy which we are preparing to 
make. ‘This is so true that we hold our breath before 
shooting at a target, threading a needle, or accomplishing 
any action which demands much attention or is difficult to 
execute. 

We do not wish to expose ourselves to interruption by 
the necessity of breathing, and we hold our breath, either 
to make provision of air, or to give a solid point of support 
to the muscles. Unless I deceive myself, my theory com- 
pletes that of Bell and Darwin, and is opposed to that of 
Gratiolet, which takes the effect for the cause. 

Bell remarked, with much justice, that when two men are 
going to fight or murder each other not a cry is heard; 
they keep the profoundest silence, and when the cry 
escapes it is because the blow is already struck and there 
is perhaps already a victim. 

Disquietude, tmpatience, expectation, desire, are general 
conditions which may be produced by the most different 
causes, but which are expressed in a different way accord- 
ing rather to the degree of the emotion than to its particular 


218 PHYSIOGNOMY. 7 


nature and its origin. One may become unquiet, impatient, 
in consequence of feverish discomfort or of suffering, or 
because of an ardent desire, or because a loved person is 
expected; but in these different cases the expression is 
nearly the same. 

The habitual character of disquietude is the rapid 
contraction and relaxation of antagonistic groups of 
muscles; the movements are accelerated and alternate 
at short intervals; thus we continually change attitude 
and position. The gaze itself is as uncertain as the 
movements of the trunk and the limbs. 

Impatience differs little from désguietude, but its cause 
is more often moral, and it is associated with an abstracted 
look and signs of denial and repulsion; it is only possible 
to be impatient at times and for special reasons. When 
impatience is increased, its expression is confused with 
that of the first degrees of rage; respiration becomes deep 
and gasping; a word or a syllable is repeated; and 
rhythmic sounds are uttered to distract one from the 
cause of preoccupation. In impatience and in boredness 
the balancing of the body and the limbs from side to 
side is a very characteristic sign. 

The expression of expectation is the same as that of desire 
or of impatience, according to circumstances. When it is 
neither associated with desire or impatience, it has the 
entirely intellectual expression which we have already 
studied. 

Desire is a certain degree of the most different emotions, - 
for we may desire through love and through hatred, through 
gluttony and through pride. Its expression is composed 
of expectation and impatience, it may also be mingled 
with that of disquietude, and it is further impregnated 
with the special character arising from the inspiring cause. 
Lebrun gave us the face of Desire in Plate 7 of his 
Atlas; but his drawing rather expresses attention; and 
by somewhat forcing the lines we get the expression of 


REPOSE AND ACTION. 219 


luxuriousness. The commentary which accompanies the 
drawing is no better. 

“This passion causes the eyebrows to press together 
and to project over the eyes, which are more widely open 
than usual, the inflamed (?) pupil is not in the middle 
of the eye, the nostrils are raised and pressed to the sides 
of the eyes, the mouth partly open, and the thoughts 
that are moving within give a vivid and warm colour.” 

I recommend to artists as models of expression of a 
general order the face of the drunken man given by 
Lavater (vol. i. p. 155, 4th edition), and that of the father 
rebuking a perverse son whom he loves profoundly. These 
drawings need neither commentary nor explanations; the 
expression is perfect: it is the most eloquent imitation 
of nature. The face of the drunken man reminds us 
that imperious, invincible slumber has an identical ex- 
pression; thus it is said—J slept Uke a drunkard, 1 
slept like the dead. And thus the analogy of expression 
corresponds to the synonyms of language. 

I do not pretend to have spoken of ali the general 
conditions of expression which are not due to a special 
emotion; but if to those which we have studied those 
of health and sickness, and that of intellectual labour, are 
added, I think that we shall have reviewed all. 

It is, however, necessary to treat another subject which 
concerns expression generally and the character given to 
it, not by the special cause which provokes it, but by the 
nature of the individual in whom it is produced, or by 
the particular conditions in which he finds himself at the 
given moment. 

Each of us has his own farticular style of expression, 
as of writing, of dressing, and in so many other things, 
high or low, which our life, so short and yet so com- 
plicated, involves, 

The manner of gesticulating is so intimately related to 
our nature that we may affirm with certainty of two people 


220 ' PHVSIOGNOMY. 


who are alike in face that they will express their emotions 
in analogous ways. It is customary to say that imitation 
contributes to this analogy in families and in races. I 
believe, on the contrary, that similarity of nature has a 
much greater influence. As long as I live I shall remem- 
ber the strange impression which the Governor of Santa-Fe, 
Don José Maria Cullen, made on me when he stood before 
me in his palace, where I was visiting him for the first 
time. He was so like my poor friend, Dr. Broglio, that I 
_ thought I saw the latter alive again and standing before me. 
But after he had greeted me, I found such identity in 
his gestures with those of my friend that I was stupefied, 
and could not hide my surprise from the excellent Don 
José. He, however, was born in America, and Broglio 
was a Lombard. Since then I have observed many like 
cases. 

The subject that we are treating is one of the most 
important and the most curious; yet it has been but little 
and superficially touched in passing by the authors of 
works on physiognomy. The great painters, the great 
sculptors, the great dramatic artists have known, by the 
intuition of genius, how to supplement the lacunz of 
science ; but they have not committed to writing all that 
they have succeeded in drawing from the profound depths 
of nature. The little that we shall say on the subject will 
serve as germs for the studies of the future. 

The expression of the same emotion may vary in 


intensity, or in abundance of peculiarities. An expression — 


may be strong and very poor in forms, or, on the other 
hand, of slight intensity and rich in peculiarities. Some- 
times, however, strength and abundance are associated, and 
carry the expression to its highest degree. Thus, in the 
savage or the man of slight intelligence, when he suffers 
much, or experiences much pleasure, his expression may be 
vivid to the point of bestiality; but it is very little varied in 
form. On the contrary, a very sensitive, very intelligent, 


REPOSE AND ACTION. 221 


and very cultivated man will give to his expression a 
delicacy of contours and richness of tints and light and 
shade which leaves us stupefied and filled with admiration. 

The individual elements which most contribute to 
diversify expression are— 

Age. 

S0x. 

Temperament. 

Character. 

Education. 

Lace. 

We will study them one by one. 

Age.—A baby, a child, a young man, an old man may 
experience the same pain or the same moral struggle. 
But what a difference in the expression ! 

The expression of a little child is especially distinguished 
by its extraordinary intensity and its poverty of forms. 
The cerebral hemispheres are feeble ; the reflex movements 
determine sudden contractions in the expressive muscles 
which are not dominated and moderated either by self- 
esteem, reflection, or by any of the other higher psychical 
energies which issue from the grey matter of the anterior 
lobes of the brain. Laughter and tears are equally violent, 
and the expression resembles that of a monkey or a negro. 
No penumbra, no peculiarity, nothing but a confused 
contraction and relaxation of the muscles. The division 
of psychical labour, which at this age is at its minimum, is 
equally important in expression as in all else. 

The extreme poverty of infantile expression is especially 
revealed in the few gestures of the arms and of the hands 
which accompany and complete the expression of the 
face. Study in a child of three the few gestures which 
accompany its speech, and you will have before you the 
picture of a savage who accentuates badly the striking 
points of his discourse and the extreme degrees of his 
emotion. In very intelligent children the precocious 


222 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


accentuation of gesture corresponds very exactly to the 
greater energy of thought. 

Still the strength of the will is manifested from the most 
tender years with a great intensity of expression. 

At the intermediate age between early childhood and 
youth the action of the cerebral hemispheres is developed 
little by little, and begins to subdivide and to elaborate the 
work of the facial muscles and that of the limbs. At this 
age the child already possesses the half-tints of irony, of 
defiance, of suspicion, and its muscles of expression, 
already habituated to submit to the rule of the brain, are 
more obedient to the will and to the moderating psychical 
influences of a high order. 

This expression of transition persists in the permanent 
condition in men of lower race, and in the higher races in 
stupid individuals. Generally, however, the impressions of 
the youth are still very intense, and very meagre in shades; 
and under strong emotions the ill-ordered impulses of the 
beast who feels much and reasons little still subsist. 

The young man attains perfect equilibrium between 
strength and richness. The play of his countenance and 
body presents the most beautiful and complete expressions 
which correspond to strong emotions, to great sensibility, 
and at the same time to an energetic curb furnished by the 
will. It is at this age that both biologist and artist should 
collect with jealous care the pictures of expression which are 
in all the plentitude of their vigour, and at the same time 
are rich in form and colour. 

Little by little the predominance of the anterior lobes 
curbs and dominates the reflex movements; reason and 
will are fortified at the expense of sensitiveness. In the 
adult the expression is always weakened, mutilated, and 
poor, until at last in our old age we come to resemble little 
children. Old people weep and laugh more easily than 
young people and adults: in them muscular force has 
diminished, and the weakness of the moderating brain is 


REPOSE AND ACTION. 223 


associated with uncertainty of contraction, which is more 
and more limited to a narrower territory of expression. 

I believe that I have observed in the expression of old 
men an infantile character which has been little, if at all, 
studied. It is the persistent repetition of a gesture or an 
expressive movement. It seems that by this repetition they 
strive to supplement the intensity of expression. While the 
young man and the adult express the same emotion by a 
growing series of different expressive movements, similar 
to variations on a musical theme, the old man hits the 
same nail again and again. Repetition has always seemed 
to me the weakest of all the figures of rhetoric, and I 
found a new confirmation of my opinion in the study of 
expression. 

I should much like to give a resumé of the comparative 
physiology of expression at different ages in a general 
formula. ‘The expression of the little child is strong and 
poor; that of the older child is strong and fairly rich in 
peculiarities; that of the young man is strong, rich, and 
above all expansive; that of the adult is better balanced; 
rather richer in peculiarities than of great intensity, it 
becomes less and less expansive; finally, in the old man 
it is feeble, uncertain, and very concentric. 

In this over wide formula many delicate shades of truth 
have of necessity disappeared, for truth is only attained by 
cutting things very close; but the intelligent reader will be 
able to give to synthesis all that is due to synthesis, and to 
correct by his own observations the excessive harshness of 
my lines. It is natural that all emotion should be diversely 
modified under the influence of age, and that expression 
should arrive at its perfection and highest degree of richness 
in the period of life when the emotions are strongest and 
most lasting. 

It is thus that we find in youth the most esthetic and 
the most elevated expressions of love, while the exercise of 
thought is accompanied by the richest and most varied 


224 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


gestures in adult age, when thought and word attain their 
highest point of development. It would never enter into 
the mind of the artist to go to-the old man to study the 
joyous expression of muscular disturbance, or to the child 
to study the calm melancholy of recollections. 

Sex.—The expression of women is very intense, poor in 
peculiarities for intellectual emotions, rich for affective and 
painful emotions. For this latter fact I have given good 
reasons in my Lhysiology of Pain.} 

Feminine expression may be characterised in a word by 
saying that it somewhat resembles that of the child. 

Other secondary modifications are due to the muscular 
weakness of woman, and to her predominant need to please 
and to seduce. Violent movements fatigue and deprive 
her of a part of her grace; grimaces make her ugly and 
pave the way for precocious wrinkles; as a result her 
expression will but seldom be energetic, and she will make 
as few grimaces as possible. 

Each sex perfects certain groups of expression proper to 
itself: thus, while the man refines the expression of will, 
command, and energy, the woman pushes to its supreme 
point the invincible grace of the smile, and the sinuous 
grace of her hips. Compare the tears of a little girl who 
is crying to be taken to the theatre, and the tears of 
a woman desirous of overcoming an insensible or too 
ungrateful lover, unfaithful or too stingy. Both alike 
are weeping, and for an analogous motive; but what a 
difference in the means and the resources! What poverty 
on one side, what richness on the other! Experience, 
intelligence, education have taught the woman the value 
of the division of the work of expression; and while the 
little girl only screams, rolling her eyes and distorting 
mouth, nose, and the whole face, making herself as ugly 
as she can, the beautiful woman caresses you with a smile 


full of tears; in each smile she puts a promise of pleasure; 


1 Mantegazza, Fisiologia del dolore, p. 309. Firenze, 1880, 


wa 


REPOSE AND ACTION. 228 


each tear is a source of pity; each throb of her muscles, 
each caress of her fingers, each serpentine movement of 
her hips, each of the beauties which she reveals to you 
in her movements, entwine you in the meshes of a net, 
and soon you will fall at her feet, bound and conquered, 
her prisoner and her slave. And what treason in the 
bursts of laughter which rise above, disappear beneath, 
and reappear on the sea of her tears! What wantonness 
in this modesty which appears to desire to rearrange that 
which her grief has disarranged! What arrows launched 
from every point of her skin, from each movement of the 
pupil! What a sublime genius of expression is unrolled in 
that little supple and graceful body to fascinate and par- 
alyse the great body of a bearded man, who dares proclaim 
himself the God of the Universe, and who at this moment 
is the slave of feminine powers of expression ! 

Temperament, Character.—It has been repeated in a 
hundred works that nervous people have great variety of 
expression, while lymphatic people are but languid in 
this respect. Thus it happens that genre pictures have 
been drawn which are caricatures of truth. And perhaps 
this is necessary, for in this case truth is too complex to 
allow of its being confined within the frame of our 
definitions. For the rest, in my Lvements of Hygiene and 
in other more popular works, I have often expressed my 
opinion on temperaments, which, though they may exist 
in nature, still do not allow themselves to be caught in 
the nets of poor fishers like ourselves. 

It is indubitable that with a high degree of sensitiveness 
(which is the most striking characteristic of nervous people) 
there is nearly always a correspondingly high degree of 
excitability ; but this is only a small part of an individual 
constitution. The differences between a hundred nervous 
or between a hundred lymphatic men are manifold. 

Character represents in the psychical domain that which 
demferament and consti/uiton represent in the organic; and 

a5 


226 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


certainly it modifies the modes of expression much more 
than /emperament. 

Here I am really afraid to continue, for it seems to me 
that I am attempting to empty the ocean with the hollow 
of my hand. Size or smallness of stature suffice to 
diversify expression; it is enough to be thin or to be fat 
to give quite a different expression to the same emotion. 
The length of the arms in itself makes certain movements 
ungraceful which appear beautiful in a person whose limbs 
are well proportioned. Generally I have remarked that 
very small men are more lively and expansive in their 
expression; they need to compensate by the rapidity of 
movement the diminutiveness of their bodies. Very tall 
or very stout people are less expansive or more concentric 
in their expression, which amounts to the same thing. 

Every one makes the most beautiful part of his body 
play the principal part in expression, and disguises the 
defective parts. He who has a well-formed mouth makes it 
a centre of expression even for emotions which ordinarily 
are better translated by the eyes. He who, on the con- 
trary, has very fine eyes takes them as his organ of 
expression in preference to the mouth. As much might 
be said of the hand, the neck, the trunk, etc. | 

The same thing happens unconsciously in the most 
accentuated energies of our brains. They give to ex- 
pression its tone, and impress a special character which 
it preserves in the most different cases. ‘The man disposed 
to satire, accustomed to maliciously seek the weak or the 
ridiculous side of all things, divine and human, will smile 
ironically even in voluptuousness, even in melancholy. 
It is the absinthe of Sardinia which can manage to pene- 
trate even into the honey of bees; it is the petroleum 
which finds its way even into ice. Thus the libertine gives a 
voluptuous character even to the expression of pain, of rage, 
or of all other emotions. The haughty have a haughty 
way of laughing or of weeping, of caressing or of striking ; 


REPOSE AND ACTION. Joy 


the wicked falsify every expression, and give to it an 
intolerable character of falsehood and uncertainty. Such 
are the rules which the most superficial observation suffices 
to establish. We must carefully collect them to serve in 
the moral diagnosis which is indispensable to us every 
day both in the little and in the great matters of life. It 
is much easier to lie with the lips or the tongue than in 
gestures ; and I have often presumed to guess the character 
of a man or a woman who has gesticulated on a balcony 
too remote for me to be able to hear the voice. 

Liducation.—lf the diagnosis which we may attempt to 
form on the character of a man is often difficult and subject 
to error, this is no longer the case with that which has 
education as its object. Here we may always affirm with 
the greatest security, so far as we, in however humble a 
degree, have the habit of observing. 

Before a person has spoken, we judge approximately by 
his manners as to the education which he has received. 
And manners are nothing but gestures, the expression : 
that is to say, the manner of walking, greeting, showing 
joy, pain, etc. 

From the manner of expression we judge not only 
the quantity of education, but also its quality. Often it 
happens that we may conjecture that such a one must have 
been educated in an ecclesiastical college, in a military 
establishment, etc. 

Generally education always acts in the same way on 
expression ; it moderates every exaggeration; it diminishes 
the reflex and bestial part; it affirms or strengthens the 
influence of the moderating centres. ‘Thus it comes that 
we conceal brutal or wicked emotions, and develop those 
which are beautiful and good. ‘The coarse man expresses 
at once all that he feels, the well-taught man only expresses 
with reserve; he will not trouble the tranquillity of those 
who approach him, and he desires above all to show that 
he holds the reins in hand. For the rest, this influence 


228 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


of education on expression is not always beneficial; it has — 
contributed in great part to give to our age this character 
of hypocrisy which distinguishes it in so high a degree. 
On another side, however, it would be still more disagree- 
able to find ourselves with people who deafened us with 
their groans each time that they experienced pain, and 
imparted to us their joys and astonishments by a rap of 
the fist or a jog of the elbow. When those who have 
lived among cultivated people find themselves suddenly 
and involuntarily among people who have received no 
education in expression, they are upset and feel as 
ill at ease as though they were in a mephitic and 
asphyxiating atmosphere. This discomfort does not 
entirely arise from exaggerated modes of expression, but 
this has certainly a great deal to do with it. 

The influence of education above all succeeds in refining 
expression and imprinting thereon the most varied zesthetic 
characteristics. ‘The first result of this refinement is that 
great effects are obtained by slight movements. Expres- 
sion resembles all other mechanisms which, in proportion 
as they are perfected, give more useful work with less 
expenditure of force. The most ardent admiration may 
be expressed to a beautiful woman in a look or a smile, 
but the coarse peasant demonstrates his love to a young 
girl by pinches and shoves. The sentiments may be the 
same in both cases ; but how different the way of express- 
ing it! Similarly we express the most profound contempt 
by a simple smile, when a rustic would spit on the ground 
or pretend to vomit. 

From the esthetic point of view there is one expression 
which is beautiful, and another which is ugly. It may be 
amiable, graceful, seductive, or coarse, brutal, and repulsive. 
The dramatic artist learns to know all these different styles, 
and directly he appears on the stage knows how to assume 
the most aristocratic manners as well as the rudest and 
most plebeian. 


REPOSE AND ACTION. 229 


Race.—Race is a very wide expression which embraces 
many different things, such as a certain fashion of feeling, 
a certain degree of intelligence, a certain intensity of emo- 
tion: all these things influence and modify expression. It 
is one of the most obscure points of the study of expression, 
and I shall devote a special chapter to it. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 
RACIAL AND PROFESSIONAL EXPRESSION. 


As for ten years I have devoted the best part of my time 
and of my energy to the study of anthropology and ethno- 
logy, this chapter ought to be the least incomplete of my 
book. Unhappily the materials collected in travels are 
not very abundant, and, in addition, are scattered in 
hundreds and thousands of volumes so thoroughly that 
to collect and co-ordinate them would be the whole life- 
work of a laborious and indefatigable man. 

Darwin himself, who treated ethnological expres- 
sion better than any one else, and who formulated 
a catechism for the purpose of collecting all information 
relative to the methods of expression in different peoples, 
was still only able to gather together very insufficient 
materials in his work. I shall add thereto the little which 
I have been able to collect in my travels in America 
and in Africa and leave the question open to the 
researches of the future. 

In this order of studies it is right to advance prudently 
and slowly, as with leaden feet; and it behoves us to 
guard against deducing a general law from a few facts. 
Which of us has not read and repeated a hundred times 
remarks on the different fashions in which the peoples of 
Europe express their emotions, and which of us has not 
deduced therefrom beautiful principles or graceful theories 
as to the influence of climate? And yet how many hazarded 
hypotheses, false laws, audacious syntheses! Here is an 
example :—The Scandinavians are taciturn, sober in their 


RACIAL EXPRESSION. 231 


movements ; they have little vivacity ; their ways of expres- 
sion are full of reserve, I would say, concentric. 

But go to Bergen, one of the largest towns in Norway. 
You will see, on the contrary, gay, noisy people, with 
eccentric and exuberant manners of expression. What 
does this mean? It is still cold at Bergen! Why then 
should expression there be quite different from that at 
Drontheim and at Christiania? It is because at Bergen 
a number of centuries ago a large quantity of Irish slaves 
were imported. It is with the Celtic blood that the 
telegraphy of gestures, the vivacity of expression, was 
introduced. You have compared amongst them people 
dwelling in Norway but springing from different races. 
And who would ever dare to speak of Italian expression 
while it is so different at Naples and at Milan, at Cagliari 
and at Turin ? 

The ethnological moderating influences are resolved 
further into other elements which we have already studied, 
and which are differences of intelligence, of culture, of 
character. If we add thereto the historical tradition which, 
by the effect of imitation, gives a common stamp to all 
men of one country, we shall have almost completed the 
analysis of these modifying influences on expression which 
we understand in the word race. 

The mobility of the features differs extremely in different 
races, and does not always agree with the rank they hold 
in the intellectual scale. Thus, only to speak of peoples 
which I have seen, I have found generally a very mobile 
physiognomy among negroes, although by the want of 
division of work in the facial muscles, they contract and 
relax entire groups of motor bundles. But if the negroes 
make many grimaces, the Italians also have very mobile 
faces, and are yet placed at a very much higher level. On 
the contrary, the indigenous tribes of the Argentine Pampas 
(Tehuelches, Pehuelches, Ranqueles, etc.) have the most 
immobile faces that I have ever seen. 


232 PH YVSIOGNOMY. 


In the peoples of fine race, the use of different foods 
which are nerve stimulants contributes much to modify the 
mobility of the face. Thus the use of coffee, of tea, of 
guarana excites sensitiveness and renders expression more 
lively ; while the use of tobacco, of opium, of coca, and of 
other narcotics, renders the facial muscles immobile and 
gives a very apathetic character to the face. 

In the same races, pastoral and agricultural peoples are 
less expansive in their expression, while the warlike, sea- 
faring, or trading nations have more mobile and expressive 
facial muscles because their life is less simple and less 
contemplative. Every one knows the tranquil expression of 
the Oriental people, who await everything from God, and do 
not know the feverish activity of the Europeans. 

If it were necessary to form a somewhat rough classifica- 
tion of the most striking ethnical expressions, I should form 
the following groups :— 

Lerocious expression.—Tobas, Pampas, Maoris, Vitians. 

Gentle expression, — Chiriguanis and the Guaranis in 
general. | 

Apathetic Expression.—Patagonians, Quichua, Aimara, 
Malays, Chinese, Japanese, Lapps. 

Grotesque or Simian Expression.—The Negroes generally 
and the Negritoes. 

Stupid Expression.—Hottentots, Boschimans, Australians. 

Intelligent Expression.—Europeans. 

I ask pardon for this audacious attempt which will serve 
to show the poverty of science in this respect. We shall 
be able to dilate more at our ease and with less uncertainty 
on several details. 

In the principal lines all people of the earth agree; 
everywhere men laugh and men weep; everywhere human 
beings caress each other to show love ; everywhere showing 
the fist or putting out the tongue testifies hatred or 
contempt. lLabillarditre saw the Maoris, as a_ sign 
of joy, laugh open-throated (a gorge deployée) and rub 


RACIAL EXPRESSION. 233 


their hands. Thus Balzac laughed; it is thus that our 
Vogt laughs. 

It is only in the details that difficulties appear. We will 
review them rapidly. 

A king of New Zealand howled like a child because our 
sailors had thrown some flour on his holiday attire. Darwin 
saw a Fuegian who had just lost his brother utter violent 
cries of grief, then begin suddenly to laugh at the smallest 
thing which diverted him. Perhaps the English of all 
Europeans weep the least ; they are ashamed to shed tears. 
A learned English lady reproached me for having made 
William weep in A Day at Madeira. 

Wyatt Gill saw a young Australian woman, who was 
weeping the loss of her father, violently strike her breast 
and cheeks with clenched fists.1 In my Physiology of Pain 
many other ethnical expressions of grief will be found.” 

There seems no doubt that all inhabitants of the earth 
laugh, and that when they laugh in excess they shed tears. 
This has been confirmed in the Hindus, the Chinese, the 
Malays, the Dyaks of Borneo, the Australians, the Caffirs, 
the Abyssinians, and the Indians of South America. | 

Joy, unaccompanied by laughter, is also expressed every- 
where in the same way. At least the enlargement and 
lighting up of the eye has been observed in the like 
circumstances in the Australians, the Hindus, the Maoris, 
and the Dyaks. In certain lower peoples the expression of 
pleasure is related to gastronomical sensations. Thus the 
Negroes of the Upper Nile rub their stomachs when they 
see some beautiful glass ware, and the Australians pretend 
to chew when they perceive horses, oxen, or dogs. The 
Greenlanders, when they speak of anything which gives 
them pleasure, breathe in the air with a peculiar noise, as 
though they were swallowing a tit-bit. We, who belong to 
a higher race, and who laugh at this lower expression, can- 


1 Wyatt Gill, Zz/e zn the Southern Isles. Wondon. 
* Mantegazza, Fistologia del dolore, p. 316. 


234 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


not however deny that sometimes at the sight of a beautiful 
woman we make a face as though tasting something 
exquisite. 

Labillardiére’s Australians testified their joy by laughing, 
putting their hands to their heads, and stamping. 

The aborigines of the Friendly Isles cry eho/ eho/ to 
express agreeable surprise. 

The islanders of Amboyna, when chatting with Labil- 
lardiére, became wonderfully animated when they spoke of 
a young woman—that is, a paranpouang mouda; and they 
made horrible grimaces which distorted their whole faces 
when they had to speak of a paranfpouang tona—that is, of 
an old woman. 

Darwin assures us that ‘caaed is unknown among the 
Fuegians, Maoris, Taitians, Papuans, Australians, the 
Somalis of Africa, and the Esquimaux; but Wyatt Gill 
saw the Papuans at Port Moresby kiss, embrace, and 
scratch each other with their fingers to eae affection 
to one another. 

Labillarditre put out his hand to an Australian; the 
latter gave his in return, smiling and bowing, and at the 
same time he raised his left foot and carried it backwards in 
proportion as his body bent forward.} 

Labillarditre saw the aborigines of the Friendly Isles 
_kiss each other with the tip of the nose; he adds that it is 
doubtless therefore that they have flattened tips to their 
noses (?). Their women demanded presents with a winning 
smile, bending their heads and placing their hands on their 
breasts. These women bowed low before Queen Tiné, put 
their heads under her right foot, and touched the sole 
with their right hands. 

In Polynesia greetings are nearly always very courteous 
and accompanied by poetical speeches. Thus at Tahiti 
and at Rarotonga they said: May you live with God/ 


1 Labillardiere, Relation du voyage @ la recherche de La Pérouse, 
etc., tom. ii., p. 29, année viii. Paris. 


RACIAL EXPRESSION. 235 


At Mangaia: Brother; at Samoa: Love to you, and in 
saying farewell: May you sleep; and that at any time in 
the day, because for these people to sleep is the ideal of 
happiness. 

Nose-kissing is met with among almost all Malays. It 
seems that the Annamites add thereto a sort of neighing. 

In the country of the Mittos, directly Schweinfurth 
entered, a seribe, the fresh cup (sorghum bread with cold 
water), was brought to him, and his feet were washed ; then 
came the visitors bringing butter, milk, honey, mevzssa, etc. 

The Nyam-Nyams greet each other politely, and when they 
want to make their salutations more courteous, or to inspire 
confidence, they say: Badya, badya, muia ; my friend, my 
dear friend, come here. ‘They put out their right hands and 
so join them that the two middle fingers meet, and when 
they shake both hands they do it with a singular movement, 
which in us would be a sign of aversion. The women are 
never greeted in public except by their most intimate 
acquaintances. 

When a Negrito of Lucon is in a wood and wishes to 
eat, he may not begin his meal before having invited aloud 
and several times all those who are within sound of his 
voice to come and partake of his repast. He who fails in 
this practice is severely punished, and sometimes even put 
to death. | 

The expression employed by men and women to signify 
in turn their amorous desires is very cosmopolitan in form ; 
neither sex will ever have been deprived of love for want of 
having been able to understand the expression of a desire. 
The nymph of the Latin poet fled towards the willows; the 
young New Caledonian women of Labillarditre, despoiling 
themselves of the only veil which covered them, ingenuously 
showed themselves to the French sailors. These two 
expressions are very different; the one full of shamefaced- 
ness and coquetry, the other shameless and frank, but both 
lead to the same end. 


236 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


Hatred, rage, contempt are expressed almost in the 
same way in every country in the world.. Darwin shows 
this by examples taken from different races. Thus the 
aborigines of the Admiralty Islands express rage by raising 
the upper lip in such a way as to show their clenched teeth, 
wrinkling their eyebrows, putting down their heads, and 
turning towards the object exciting their rage. Another 
inhabitant of the island had all the muscles of the face, and 
especially those of the eye, seized with convulsive move- 
ments. And that picture might also be applied to our- 
selves. The Monbuttoos express astonishment by opening 
the mouth out of all proportion and covering it with the 
open hand. It seems that the aborigines of North America 
have the same way of expressing surprise. 

If from these very remote races we pass to the European 
peoples whom we know better, we shall also find notable 
differences in the way of expressing the same emotion. In 
this respect we might find the first attempts at an ethnical 
physiognomy even in the old writers; but all have con- 
founded features with expression, immutable anatomical 
characters with variable movements. We will give a few 
examples into which many purely psychical characters enter. 

Ghiradelli devotes the last chapter of the work which we 
have already quoted to the Universal knowledge of different 
nations or provinces. Here are a few passages from the 
four small pages which he gives to so important a subject— 

“Just as regions and countries differ from each other, 
so the manners of the inhabitants are dissimilar. ‘The 
Egyptians are cunning, docile, light, avaricious, and 
inclined to the pleasures of love. The people of Thracia 
are unjust, idle, and cowardly. ‘Those of Scythia (accord- 
ing to the reports of Maternus) are cruel. The nations of 
Transalpine Gaul indocile, courageous, and proud. The 
Italians are famous and illustrious for their descent from 
the Romans. The French ... and the Greek are light, 
the Syrians avaricious, the Asiatics given to Venus and 


RACIAL EXPRESSION. 237 


always occupied with pleasure, the Sicilians very subtle, 
the Babylonians prudent. 


“In Lusitania (as Portugal is called) men are born 
melancholy, sanguine, and robust, but of slow and hard 
intelligence. 

“The Sicilians are passionate and melancholy, well 
made in body, courageous; they are often practised in 
fighting, they leap and dance very agilely, and become very 
nimble. Italy most often gives birth to weak men, although 
a few (by exception) may be very robust ; they are distin- 
guished rather by imitation than by invention,! they are of 
middling stature and rather thin. 

“In Germany men are phlegmatic, choleric, corpulent, 
imbecile (!!), and very little apt in difficult enterprises, 
although very ingenious in their manual works. The French 
have a phlegmatic and choleric temperament ; they are for 
the most part weak ; and if some are brave (!!) and strong, 
they make a bad use of their courage and their strength. 


“According: to the nature of the celestial signs we may 
conjecture the temperament of those subjected to their 
influence. Thus Narbonese Gaul is placed _ exactly 
under the sign of the Ram and under Mars, and its 
inhabitants are generally ferocious, insolent, and cruel. 
But Italy, Puglia, Lombardy, Sicily are placed under 
the sign of the Lion and under the Sun, and the people 
who dwell there have a taste for horrors, grandeur, mag- 
nanimity, and amity. The Tuscans, the Transalpine Gauls, 
and the Spanish are placed under the sign of Sagitarius 
and under Jupiter: thus they are friends of liberty, of 
justice, and politeness. .. .” 

All this is coarse psychology and astrology, but not 
comparative expression. The conclusion of these insensate 
vagaries is worthy of the premises— 


1 Tt seems impossible that an Italian could write so great a heresy. 


238 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


“Let us then conclude that temperaments and manners 
of men depend in great part on the nature of the country 
and the planets, and by the signs to which they are 
BEDeCtocs ss" 

Lavater, coming a century later, and endowed with a 
wider and more scientific mind, found himself face to face 
with this great problem of national physiognomies, and 
devoted thereto many pages and many plates, always con- 
founding anatomy and expression. 

“Tf nations differ in their moral character, they must 
differ still more in their physiognomy. The fact is real, and 
to doubt it one must never have seen men of different 
nations; one must never have approached the frontiers of 
two:peoples,-, .'. 

‘All that I have written on this subject, and all that I 
shall say of it, is nothing in comparison with the interesting 
discussions which it may furnish. It is enough for me to 
show that it deserves to be treated in a special work, which 
should be worthy to occupy the attention of our Academies, 
and to exercise the liberalities of princes. 

“The natural history of natural physiognomies is 
a study worthy of occupying man and the philosopher, 
the mind inclined to action and the purely speculative. 
It is one of the first and the principal bases of physiog- 
nomy, and, I repeat, to deny that there are national 
physiognomies and characters is to deny that it is day 
at full noon.” 

That may be called putting the problem and foreseeing 
the future solutions; but when Lavater would descend to 
details he only draws uncertain and confused lines, If all 
in these observations on national physiognomies that relates 
to the features is suppressed, here we have the meagre 
harvest which remains to us. 

In speaking of the French, he says they are above all 
distinguished by their teeth and way of laughing. 


RACIAL EXPRESSION. 239 


The Swiss have no national or generic physiognomical 
character, except the frankness of their look. 

As he confesses to having travelled little, he borrows 
observations, edited or not, from several scholars. There 
too what uncertainty ! 

“Rapid elocution, the way of acting brusquely and 
precipitately, of which the Jews give proof on _ every 
occasion, distinguish them from other peoples.” —LENTz. 

“I have not only observed the differences’ of 
national physiognomies, but I have had the opportunity 
to convince myself by innumerable experiments that the 
principal form of the whole body, its general attitude, an 
embarrassed or negligent movement of the head, a firm or 
uncertain, rapid or slow step often offers more infallible 
characteristics perhaps than the face alone. The man 
studied from a condition of perfect repose to the highest 
degree of rage, of fright, or of grief, would be so easy to 
recognise that one might distinguish Hungarian, Slave, 
Illyrian, and Wallachian only by the attitude of the body, 
the movements of the head, and the gestures. In con- 
sequence the same signs would serve to fix our ideas on 
the positive and invariable character of such and such a 
nation.” —FUvESLIN. 

There are some very subtle observations in a writer of 
Darmstadt, whose name unfortunately Lavater has not given 
ieee riere are some— 

The Englishman walks upright, and when he is standing 
he maintains a stiff immobility . . . when he is silent and 
inactive his physiognomy gives no indication of the mind 
and intelligence which he possesses in so high a degree. 
His eye says nothing, and does not seek to please. 

“The Frenchman... walks in a dancing way. His 
open face announces at once a thousand agreeable and 
amiable things. He does not know how to hold his 
tongue, and when his mouth is closed his eyes and the 
muscles of his face continue to speak. 


240 PH VSIOGNOMY. 


“Sometimes the eloquence of his exterior becomes 
astounding, but his natural goodness covers all his faults. 
Although his face is peculiar, it is difficult to describe it. 
No nation has less marked features and at the same time 
so great mobility. The Frenchman expresses all that he 
will by his face and gestures: thus he is recognised at the 
first glance and can hide nothing. . . .” 

The portrait which this good citizen of Darmstadt draws 
of the Italian is too amusing for me to resist the temptation 
of giving it entire— 

“The physiognomy of the Italian is all soul. His 
language is a continual exclamation and gesticulation. 
Nothing nobler than his exterior; his country is the home 
of beauty. A small forehead, the bones of the cheeks 
very pronounced, an energetic nose and an elegant mouth, 
attest his relationship with the ancient Greek. The fire 
of his glance proves in what degree the development of 
intellectual faculties depends on the influence of a happy 
climate. His imagination is always awake, always in 
sympathy with the objects which surround him. His 
mind is a reflex of all creation. See with what superiority 
Ariosto has run through every domain. A poem like his 
is, in my mind, the prototype of genius. 

‘‘ Finally, in the Italian all is poetry, music, and song, 
and the sublimities of art belong to him of right. It is 
true that at a recent epoch the political and religious system 
may have given an evil twist to the national character ; but 
it is the populace only which deserves the reproach of 
perfidy. In all other classes of the population the most 
honest and generous feelings are found.” 

Artists would do well to study Chodowiecki’s table in 
Lavater’s work, where they will find twenty-eight national 
types represented on a small scale with their characteristic 
gestures and features. 

But if, after having met with so many clouds in the 
past, we would seek a more breathable air and describe 


RACIAL EXPRESSION. 241 


correct types capable of resisting scientific criticism, we 
find ourselves very embarrassed. 

Each of us, in the narrow circle of his own experience, 
knows by having observed it how expression differs in the 
French, English, and Spanish. But it is another thing, 
and much more difficult, to define and to describe these 
differences. 

We will limit ourselves to a few words, hoping at least in 
this way to commit fewer errors. 

The expression of different peoples is above all iapree 
nated with their most prominent psychical characters. 

The culture and ardent love of the beautiful are virtues 
_ which belong to us Italians; our shame is to have been 
constrained to obey for centuries petty laic tyrants and 
great tonsured tyrants. It is because of this that our 
expression, while it is beautiful and impassioned, yet 
remains defiant and not always frank. 

Each province of Italy has a particular manner of 
expressing emotion. While the Milanese laugh readily 
and loud, and in this resemble the Celts, the inhabitant 
of Cagliari is extremely serious, because he has been 
largely subject to Spanish influence. The Tuscan is the 
most Italian of all Italians, and in consequence the most 
defiant and reserved of all; the Neapolitan makes tele- 
graphic gestures with his arms; the Romagnol is rough 
and frank ; and the Roman, worthy in his statuesque move- 
ments, always retains the fatidic letters S, P, Q,-R, 
inscribed in invisible characters. 

The expression of the Frenchman is_ concentric, 
rapid, and gay; that of the Englishman haughty and 
stern; that of the German heavy, benevolent, and always 
ungraceful. The Spaniard and Portuguese gesticulate little ; 
their faces remain impassive, perhaps rather in consequence 
of Asiatic influences, but especially that the dignity of 
the Hidalgo may not be compromised. Many Slave 


peoples do not look one readily in the face, and have a 
16 


242 PH YVSIOGNOM Y. 


very false expression; the Jews in all Europe have an 
embarrassed and timid expression; in each of their move- 
ments they seem to ask pardon for being in the world; 
they always seem ready to take to flight—like cats, who, 
consulting with disturbed eyes, look under which door or 
over which wall they will be able to escape. The fault is 
not in the Jewish race, but in us who have persecuted 
them for so many centuries with a piety so evangelic. 
The expression of the Scandinavian is hard and without 
grace, as I described it in my book on Lapland.! 

In a general way, and taking things in the gross, it may 
be said that in Europe we have an expansive and a con- 
centric expression. The first is found in the Italians, the 
French, the Slaves, the Russians; the second in the Ger- 
mans, the Scandinavians, the Spanish. We might also say 
that there is a beautiful expression full of grace, that of 
the people of Grzeco-Latin origin; and another hard, quite 
angular, without roundness, that of the Germans, the 
English, and the Scandinavians. 

I will now say a few words on the expression peculiar 
to certain professions. It is certain that often on seeing a 
stranger we exclaim to ourselves—Zhis man must be a 
pharmacist! I bet that this is a priest or a disguised 
soldier! This other can only be a carpenter! And many 
times these hazarded suppositions have been correct. 

If in these opinions, or to say better, in these conjectures, 
we abstract all that depends on the mode of dressing and 
of speaking, all the rest belongs to expression. ‘The pro- 
fession has then a modifying influence on the expression of 
the face, and even on the character, on the health, and 
many other inner and outer things which relate to the ega. 

__ The professions which most profoundly modify expression 

are those which daily exact a particular mode of muscular 

movement or of brain work. It is because of this that I 

recognise the druggist, the pharmacist, the carpenter, the 
1 Mantegazza, Viaggio in Lapponia. Milan, 1880, 


RACIAL EXPRESSION. 243 


priest, and the soldier more readily than other members of 
society. 

The habit of always remaining seated behind a desk, or 
making up little packets, gives a very striking character to 
the gestures of a druggist, which is found almost the same 
in the pharmacist, but associated with the gravity of the 
magician who reigns over prejudices, fears, and mysteries. 
The doctor himself often recalls the pharmacist, for the 
same reason; but in him there is further the stereotyped 
seriousness of the man who neither can nor will laugh in 
the midst of the suffering which he has constantly before 
his eyes. 

It would be more difficult for me to say why I often 
succeed in recognising a carpenter in the midst of all 
the other workmen who fashion and transform matter. I 
believe, however, that I may explain it by saying that the 
habit of planing, piercing, sawing, drawing lines, of seeking 
symmetry in the woods, gives a peculiar character to the 
muscles of the face which becomes permanent. 

The priest and the soldier belong to distinct social 
castes ; they wear uniforms and visible signs which impreg- 
nate their very skins, their muscles, their whole being. 
The gesture of the soldier is always precise, rigid, 
energetic; that of the priest, supple and unctuous, seems 
to glide into the celestial spheres inhabited by cherubim. 
The soldier, even in mufti, has in all his gestures the 
attitude of obedience or command. The priest, even in 
lay attire, retains the mark of the cassock and band: his 
fingers always seem to bless or absolve; his lips are 
constantly occupied in murmuring the service ; he is con- 
tinually adoring, and seems ever to smell the heavenly 
incense or of terrestrial Tartuffism. My friend, Dr. 
Emmanuele Malfatti, pretends that he can always re- 
cognise a priest by his lower lip, always prominent, and 
sometimes falling, by the habit of wetting the finger to 
turn over more rapidly the pages of his breviary. 


244 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


Similarly, the sailor, the horseman, and the dancer are 
easily recognised in the midst of other men. It is easy to 
understand that this depends on their peculiar habits of 
using their legs. The habit of riding suffices to give a 
national character to the Hungarians, the Arabs, and to the 
population of the Argentine Republic. 

Clockmakers, bankers, notaries, advocates, have gestures 
peculiar to themselves. But there the diagnosis becomes 
more uncertain and more difficult. Many witty pages 
might be written on this subject; amusing caricatures of 
each profession might be drawn; but science would derive 
therefrom few materials for the building up of a serious and — 
positive construction. 


CHAPTER XIX. 
THE MODERATORS AND DISTURBERS OF EXPRESSION. 


EXPRESSION is the effect of a centrifugal current emanating 
from the brain and spinal cord. If certain contractions 
or certain relaxations of the muscles always corresponded 
to the same emotion and the same psychical phenomenon, 
it would be very easy to interpret the expression value of 
each movement, since experience would have furnished the 
necessary data for putting the equation. And we could not 
only recognise the meaning of the expression, but also 
measure the degree of the energy which provokes it. 
Unhappily the problem does not admit of being put in 
these terms, it is much more complicated. At least, where 
an emotion tends to be expressed in a certain way, by 
means of a certain group of the muscles of the face, of the 
trunk, or of the limbs, often a disturbing or a modifying 
cause intervenes, and the final result for the same emotion 
may be entirely changed. Thus we may maintain that in 
expression simple emotions are most rare, and that generally 
we have before us a resultant of different and opposite 
forces in equilibrium and mutually modifying each other. 
It is here that we have the principal objection raised against 
physiognomy, considered as interpreting the inner man, and 
this it is that inspired Lavater to his vst Fragment—The 
Despised Pretentions of the Phystognomist.1 But, a century 
ago, he had not at his disposal an experimental science, 
refined, exacting, inexorable, which would have allowed 
him to answer his adversaries with more solid arms, pene- 
trating to the bottom of things. In addition to this 


1 Lavater, of. cz¢., tom. ii. p. I. 


246 PH YVSIOGNOM Y. 


difficulty, which came to him from the epoch in which he 
lived, his sensitive nature made him rapidly run over the 
surface of things, that he might feel the warmth of the 
feeling exhaled by them. 


‘“Thus we agree that the Physiopngnal is sometimes 


deceived; but we shall always maintain that his errors 
only show the limits of his penetration, and in no way 
prove that the science which he makes his object is a 
lying science. ‘To conclude from the contempt of the 
Physiognomist that in general Physiognomy deserves no 
confidence, is as though one maintained reason is a 
chimera, because it may happen to any reasonable man 
that he acts in a way contrary to reason.” 

Lavater and the other less celebrated physiognomists 
have almost entirely concerned themselves with dissimu- 
lation as a disturbing cause of our judgments, while there 
are many other disturbing elements beyond that. And as 
on the other side they have always confounded anatomy 


with expression, the immutable with the variable, they could — 


only weakly defend themselves against their adversaries. 
The complex effects of expression may be studied in 
the most intelligent animals and in those nearest to our- 
selves. A dog has been well chastised several times for 
having jumped on a table and taken the meat he found 
there. A tempting morsel is offered to him on a plate 
and the plate put before him. It seems that the dog 
ought to express the very simple feeling of alimentary 
desire and pleasure; but at the same time he remembers 
the severe corrections he has received. While he contem- 
plates the meat and shakes his tail, he examines you with 
an inquiring and suspicious air, and from time to time 
all expression ceases, and he looks into the air as though 
profoundly disturbed and preoccupied. ‘This picture is 
a living representation of the expression of pleasure 
troubled by fear. It is by no means the only one which 
the observation of animals offers us. I appeal to hunters 





es Ag) ae id a ees 


| 


eh ae 


EXPRESSION. 247 


who may have seen hundreds of others, and to all those 
who, possessing an intelligent cat at home, have a thousand 
Opportunities of studying the hypocritical allurements of 
this domestic tiger. 

In man, it is always will which troubles and modifies 
the simple and ingenuous expression. But will may in 
turn be shaken by a psychical x of variable nature. 

Here are some examples. 

Modesty, especially in woman, who feels it more than 
man, may modify or even entirely hide the expression of 
voluptuousness, offering us pictures in which pleasure now 
triumphs and upsets all the moderating obstacles which 
oppose her will, now modestly hides under the veil of a 
noble hypocrisy. At other times, on the contrary, the 
desire of deceiving or of pleasing the companion of our 
pleasures may reach the point of simulating more or less 
skilfully a voluptuousness which is not felt at all. 

At other times, it is courage, or self-love, which interferes 
to moderate the expression of suffering; and a forced 
smile shines on a face spasmodically contracted, or a willed 
immobility puts a curb on the most violent and irresistibly 
muscular contractions. On this point I refer the reader 
to my Physiology of Fain, in which I devoted a whole 
chapter to the study of some disturbing causes in ex- 
pressions of pain. ‘To complete the sketch, I may be 
permitted to recall the most important of my conclusions. 
The most striking characters of false expressions of pain 
are the following :— 

1, The expression is almost always exaggerated and out 
of proportion with the causes of pain. 

2. The face is not at all pale, and muscular disturbance 
intermittent. 

3. The skin preserves its normal colour. 

4. There is no harmony in the expression, and certain 
muscular contractions and relaxations are seen which are 
always wanting in true pain. 


a48 PHVSIOGNOMY. 


5. The pulse is rapid, because of the exaggerated 
muscular effort. 

6. An unforeseen surprise or any object which attracts 
attention is enough to cause all the expression of pain to 
suddenly disappear. 

7. Sometimes one succeeds in discovering, through the 
deepest sobs and groans, the fugitive gleam of a smile, 
in which perhaps the malicious joy of deceiving one’s 
neighbour is betrayed. 

8. The expression is nearly always excentric and abso- 
lutely wanting in concentric forms. 

This analytical study suggests to us a method for the dis- 
covery and description of all other hypocritical expressions. 
False pleasure, for example, is expressed by a forced 
laugh, by deep sighs prolonged beyond time and measure. 
False rage is manifested by exaggerated movements of 
the limbs and by a forced contraction of the eyebrows, 
while the lip smiles involuntarily and the eye looks another 
way. 

False expressions may be reduced to two types— 

Exaggeration of a weak emotion, or simulation of an 
emotion which does not exist. 

Attenuation of an expression, or even its complete adts- 
simulation. 

When we exaggerate expression, we nearly always push 
this exaggeration beyond the probable; this gymnastic of 
hypocrisy fatigues us; we often rest, and at intervals we 
frequently substitute, without perceiving it, a diametrically 
opposed expression for the part we will to play. 

Thus I have seen a woman who had just received a large 
inheritance from her brother burst into laughter, while she 
was striking her head against the wall, and pretending to 
be inconsolable. Similarly, when a religious feeling is 
simulated, admiration or compassion, it often happens that 
there is a cynical or sardonic smile, or the tongue is put out 
in a grotesque manner. 











EXPRESSION. 249 


Exaggeration of expression, disorder of movements, 
marked interruptions, these are the most striking characters 
of an expression which would denote that which is not felt, 
or make pretence of an emotion which is not experienced 
at all. There is, however, another character, still more 
constant, which because of its extreme slightness has 
escaped many ordinary observers. 

Of all the muscles, those of the trunk are the most 
amenable to the will, those of the face are less obedient, 
and those of the eyes the most independent of all. That 
is why, in a lying expression, so many movements are made 
with arms and legs, so many contractions of the muscles of 
the face; while the eye courageously resists, or at least is 
the last to lend itself to these lies. We see a hurricane in 
miniature, a tempest of convulsions; but the eye remains 
immobile and apathetic, and suffices to reveal the secret 
of the comedy. Tears flow very rarely in feigned emo- 
tions. Some women only, truly geniuses of falsehood, 
succeed in shedding true tears without feeling any grief. 
In the ordinary condition, the lachrymal glands are not 
obedient to the will; but after a long exercise it may be 
possible to overcome and to discipline them, and they 
allow of the flow of their precious legion when this suits 
the arrant Tartuffe who desires to dupe others. 

One may be a great artist in hypocrisy, may have been 
practised since childhood to express that which is not 
felt, and have acquired a talent of the first order in this 
sort, still there is always the fear of not succeeding at will, 
because the difference which exists between the inner 
feeling and the comedy which is being played is felt. 
Thence comes the irresistible tendency to exaggeration, the 
belief that expression is insufficient, and the need felt 
to supplement it by cries or words. Great pains are 
nearly always silent, or at least only accompanied by 
those vital phenomena which we call automatic, such 
as sighs and groans; on the contrary, feigned emotions 


250 PH YSIOGNOM Y. 


are often eloquent, and accompanied by great outbursts 
of loquacity. 

Inversely, when for any end we attempt to dissimulate an 
emotion, we give ourselves up to work quite opposite to the 
preceding. Before all, we attempt to restrict the domain of 
expression, and naturally we begin with the muscles which 
most quickly and most easily obey our will. The move- 
ments of the legs, arms, trunk, and neck are stayed. Ifthe 
moderating force is increased, the field of expression is more 
and more narrowed, and even the muscles of the mouth and 
cheeks are stopped, until finally expression is reduced to 
this last territory which in every age, and in every language, 
has been called, and not without reason, the mirror of the 
soul. 

It is in the eye that the last battle is fought: this is the 
last fortress where expression concentrates all its forces, and 
often remains victorious, even after having abandoned every 
otler province. The vulgar, who judge by the appearance 
of things, say that the emotion has disappeared, or has 
never existed, because they see the limbs and the body 
immobile, and the face impassive ; but the more profound 
observer finds concentrated in the eye all the forces which 
were previously scattered over a vast space, and judges 
rightly that the emotion is very strong, but that it has shut 
itself up entirely in a very narrow citadel. 

Sometimes, by force of hypocrisy or heroism (for in the 
physiology of the phenomenon no account can be taken 
of the moral side), all the expressive muscles of the body 
and the limbs have been successfully stilled; but a 
contrary expression has been substituted. We are over- 
whelmed with bitterness and humiliation, and yet we laugh 
and joyously shake our fingers, neck, or feet. Our whole 
body expresses contentment: the eye is silent, and resists 
this avalanche of falsehoods. All at once two big tears 
roll down the cheeks, and reveal the secret of. the painful 
battle which is waging. The great painters, and the great 





EXPRESSION. - o5r 


dramatic artists, know how to express these hidden beauties ; 
but we, who are neither painters nor comedians, should 
study these troubles of expression to profit by them in life. 

More than once, while children have appeared nrofoundly 
absorbed in study, I have discovered that they were giving 
themselves up to their vicious habits by examining their 
eyes, which alone betrayed what the whole remainder of the 
body succeeded in hiding. 

The vasomotor nerves also are little or not at all obedient 
to the will; thus it is right to pay great attention to the 
sudden flushing or paling of the face, because it is often 
the involuntary sign of an emotion of which not the least 
trace could be discovered in all the rest of the territory of 
expression, not even in the eye. 

In the midst of an animated conversation, in a theatre 
or in a ball-room, should the preferred man be suddenly 
brought in, ninety times in a hundred the loved woman 
blushes suddenly; or even more rarely she grows pale. 
No mark of surprise, no smile, no movement has greeted 
this arrival beyond the eye, which has perhaps closed, or 
the eyelid, which has fallen to hide the sudden gleam from 
the mirror of the soul; but the vasomotor nerves have had 
to yield to the emotion, and have caused the face to blush 
or to turn pale. 

If when her lover enters the room the beloved neither 
changes colour nor lowers her eyelids, either she does not 
love, or she has attained a perfection of hypocrisy which 
may give reason for doubting whether a heart still beats 
within her breast. 

Men of strong will, and women who have carried the 
gymnastics of simulation very far, after having driven 
expression into its last fortress, the eye, might succeed in 
triumphing even over this last entrenchment, so that 
nothing shall now give any outer sign of the internal 
flame. ‘Then, when all the valves of expression are thus 
closed, it nearly always happens that a limb (a leg, an arm, 


252 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


a finger) is suddenly taken with a rhythmical convulsion, 
and begins to beat time regularly. Generally the finger 
taps on a solid body so as to make a noise, or the foot 
beats the ground. Less often the breathing is gasping 
and stifled, even passing into hissing. 

These facts are frequently verified when there is an 
attempt to hide rage. This rage is so much the stronger 
the more frequent the rhythmic tapping becomes sub- 
stituted for the ordinary explosive expression, and as this 
tapping is accompanied by laboured breathing. It seems 
that in this case there is not only, in a figurative sense, a 
boiler full of steam, the valves of which are closed and 
threaten to burst, but there is actually a captive force 
escaping from its prison with a fury and a violence more 
redoubtable the narrower the passage which it finds. 

In all these cases of feigning and dissimulation there is 
always an unfolding of muscular force, or at most of 
phenomena of secretion which are associated with it, as 
that of shedding tears. But there are other more complete 
and obscure transformations in which the purely expressive 
fact passes into the highest psychical regions. We will not 
penetrate into a realm beyond the field which we have 
undertaken to treat in this volume, but we must examine 
how these phenomena are related to expression. 

Often enough the effort made to dissimulate an emotion 
is so great that if it lasted it would induce serious troubles 
in the nervous centres. The force of expression which 
cannot find an exit in the muscular field then throws itself 
into the regions of thought, and arouses there new and 
powerful manifestations. 

A man enters a room. A woman whom he loves shows no 
emotion ; but, from being very silent, she suddenly becomes 
very talkative; or, if she had been speaking indifferently, 
she begins to talk with enthusiasm ; the sound of her voice 
modifies, and may even become musical. More frequently 
she forgets the subject of conversation, and, by a strange 





EXPRESSION. 253 


and bizarre association of ideas, she begins to run over a 
hundred things which have no relation either to those of 
which they were talking or to their surroundings. Unex- 
pected caresses for a child whom she had previously not 
noticed, sudden enthusiasm for a picture which she had not 
remarked, or for a piece of furniture which she had seen a 
hundred times without paying attention to it: such are the 
very precious and grave signs which tell us that the emo- 
tion is very strong, and, not being able to pour itself 
out in natural expression, has invaded the field of thought 
and feeling, to suddenly arouse there an unwonted and 
confused activity. 


CHAPTER XxX. 


CRITERIA FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE STRENGTH OF 
AN EMOTION BY THE DEGREE OF THE EXPRESSION. 


AN almost immobile face scarcely expresses anything; a 
very mobile face may express a great emotion; an entirely 
immobile face may express an emotion carried to its highest 


point. 
‘I did not weep: within I grew to stone.” 


A verse that all remember, and which shows that our great 
poet was also a profound observer. It proves at the same 
time how difficult it is to measure the intensity of an emo- 
tion by the exact degree of the expression. It is too true 
that in expression also extremes meet, and that cynical 
laughter may accompany poignant suffering just as tears 
may be the sign of a very great joy. 

Probing deeper, we recognise that the confusion is less 
than it seemed at first. The face rendered immobile by 
excess of emotion is in a state of tetanic contraction, while 
the face without expression or the indifferent face have the 
muscles in a state of semi-repose, which permits of no want 
of equilibrium either between the elevators and depressors 
of the lip and of the jaw, or between the muscles which 
direct the eyeball to such or such a point of the horizon. 
The indifferent face presents general immobility, but not 
spasmodic, without any characteristic relaxation, and without 
any special contraction. 

The omnibus is dne of the best places to observe examples 
of these indifferent or neutral faces; but we must at once 


STRENGTH OF AN EMOTION. 256 


add that it is very rare to meet any perfectly indifferent. 
The least degree of attention, of weariness, of pleasure, or 
of suffering, the simple recollection of a pleasant word or of 
a painful scene, suffices to give more brilliancy to the eye, 
to raise or depress a corner of the mouth, and to thus 
bring about a slight expression on the face. An absolutely 
negative expression on the face of a man who is not asleep 
is sO rare that even on canvas or in marble, in portraits 
which have not been made with the view of expressing a 
passion, we inevitably seek a sign which reveals a thought, 
a character, a shadow of a psychical act. And most fre- 
quently this sign exists because the frequent repetition of 
a same expression draws or sculptures it in; and if the 
artist is not a simple modeller or a photographer of noses 
and ears, he must have represented that part of the face 
which belongs to expression. ‘This is so true that on look- 
ing at a portrait we always look for this expression; if we 
do not find it, and if we cannot say that this face is intelli- 
gent, or inspired, or lascivious, or bad, or joyous, we say it 
‘is a stupid face, which for us is pretty well synonymous with 
a perfectly apathetic and expressionless face. 

One of my dearest friends is very little inclined to be 
expansive, and his expression consequently is one of the 
least expressive that I know; but when he reads or hears 
anything which causes him a certain surprise he elongates 
his trunk vertically (whether he is sitting or standing), and 
by this simple movement expresses his emotion and 
astonishment. 

From complete apathy, which represents zero, we pass 
successively to the highest degree of voluptuousness, 
despair, rage, love. 

Independently of the nature of the sentiment which 
moves us, the intensity of the emotion is measured in the 
following ways :— 

1. By the force of the contraction of the expressive 
muscles 


256 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


2. By the persistency of their contractions. 

3. By the diffusion of the movements in expressive 
circles of increasing size. 

4. By the rapidity of the alternating contractions and 
relaxations, 

Every day we measure the intensity of the emotion by 
the force of the contraction. 

The act of pressing the jaws together is one of the most 
certain signs of rage; but there is a gradual passage from 
the simple shutting of the mouth to the gnashing of the 
teeth, and finally to spasmodic contraction, such as I have 
seen in a woman in an access of jealousy. 

The persistence of an expressive act is a less certain sign, 
for the strongest emotions are of short duration. Generally, 
however, when there is a very strong but not excessive 
emotion, the persistency of the expression indicates the 
intensity of the psychical act with which it is associated. 
Tears which are of long duration generally come with long 
pains, ceteris paribus, and prolonged laughter scarcely 
suffices to discharge the strong tension produced in us by 
a very comical or very ridiculous scene. | 

The diffusion of expression in gradually increasing circles 
gives perhaps a more exact measure of the intensity of emo- 
tion. At first the expressive picture is limited to a small 
number of muscles, then the expression extends to more 
and more distant muscles, and finally invades all. | 

That which occurs in such cases recalls the centrifugal 
circles produced by the fall of a stone on the surface of a> 
lake. 

This progressive diffusion of expression may be studied © 
in the smile, which at first scarcely causes the contraction 
of the elevator of the upper lip, which afterwards changes 
into a laugh in which all the muscles of the face, and in 
addition the diaphragm and the respiratory muscles of the — 
thorax and of the neck, participate; when laughter becomes 
immoderate and excessive, the arms, legs, and muscles of © 


STRENGTH OF AN EMOTION. 267 


the trunk enter into the movement, and at last the emotion 
breaking through the frontiers of the cerebro-spinal world, 
seems to invade those of the great sympathetic, and leads 
to the involuntary evacuation of urine and intestinal gases. 

The diffusion of the circles of expression follows certain 
laws of contiguity and sympathy. As to the face, the 
diffusion seems to proceed by the simple contiguity of 
the muscles to which the contiguity of the excito-motor 
centres necessarily corresponds. After the face the neck 
comes, which often moves, then the arms, then the trunk, 
and finally the legs. 

Generally, the upper limb is more expressive than the 
lower, and the movements of the arms and the hands 
accompany the increasing intensity of word and of will. 
In many cases, however, the sympathetic communication 
between the expressive circles proceeds rather according 
to the harmony of functions than according to the con- 
tiguity of expressive muscles. ‘Thus it may happen that a 
lascivious expression of face, when the emotion becomes 
more intense, agitates by sympathy the muscles of the 
pelvis and of the lower limbs before those of the arms, 
although these are more expressive. 

The arm and hand are the true instruments of expres- 
sion; they perfect, refine, and complete the action of the 
face. A caress, or the joining of the hands in adoration, 
corresponds to the kiss which the lips have just impressed. 
The interlacing of the fingers is associated with the wide- 
opened mouth and the eyes dilated with stupor. To lips 
clenched in anger is added a closed fist, and an arm raised 
to heaven, and so forth. 

However diverse the functions of the muscles of the 
face, the trunk, and the limbs, the general character of the 
expressive form is always preserved in the diffusion of the 
expression through different legions of muscle. Thus 
sudden and irresistible joy causes the opening of the 
arms, then of the legs, after having produced movements oh 

17 


258 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


the face, all of which are centrifugal. On the contrary, a 
violent pain, after making all the muscles of the face 
converge in a centripetal direction, tends to bring the arms 
and lower limbs towards the medium line of the body. 
This is because the expression of pleasure is always 
centrifugal, and that of pain always centripetal. 

The diffusion of the expressive field in proportion to the 
growing intensity of an emotion is one of the fundamental 
laws which regulate the propagation of the movement, and 
it must be based on a very simple phenomenon of 
elementary physics. A small number of nerves and of 
muscles do not suffice for the diffusion and transformation 
of a given quantity of the psychical movement. After 
having exhausted the resources of the cerebro-spinal system 
and those of the great sympathetic, it seems at times that 
the action tends to propagate itself beyond ourselves in 
such a way that we carry away in sympathy with our move- 
ment external objects whether animate or inanimate. How 
often has not a man, drunk with joy, having brought all the 
muscles of his body to asupreme degree of tension, made 
the chairs and tables of his room dance, and his friends 
too, if any were within reach! At other times the same 
objects which are to hand become so many projectiles 
which we fling away with great centrifugal force in an 
access of pain or hatred. 

The annexed schematic figure diagramatically represents 
the diffusion of circles of expansion, as occurs in most 
cases; it extends from the face to the neck, the arm, the 
trunk, to the lower limbs, and finally to unconscious regions 
of the great sympathetic. 

One last criterion, very important for the measuring of 
the intensity of an emotion, is that furnished by the rapid 
alternations of muscular contraction and relaxation. Here 
the intensity of the central movement which accompanies 
the emotion finds a means, thanks to change, of discharging 
itself to the profit of the nervous centres. It is especially 


STRENGTH OF AN EMOTION. 259 


in pain that this alternation may be observed; tears are 
succeeded by sobs, groans, cries, sighs, palpitations, and all 
these phenomena may follow in different order. Also 
spasmodic and suffocating laughter may alternate with 
lamentations and convulsions of diverse forms. 





When the four elements which we have studied separ- 
ately are united and associated, we have in a single scene 
of expression all the proofs of great intensity of emotion. 
In fact, strong contractions, lasting contractions, a great 
diffusion of expressive phenomena, and an alternation of 
different pictures may occur. 

In extreme degrees of emotion neither of these conditions 
by itself, nor all four together or successively, suffice to 
complete the picture. Then we have before us the paralytic 
form which arises from the exhaustion of nerve centres and 
from the fatigue of expressive muscles. Immobility may 
then be absolute or nearly absolute. It is no longer the 
tetanic immobility of him who ‘‘ within has grown to stone,” 
but the immobility of apparent death. At most some 
characteristics of the emotion which has reduced us to this 
extremity continue. The cry, J am dying/ may be the 
expression of extreme pleasure as much as of extreme 
suffering ; syncope may be the last effect of ferocious rage, 
as of mad envy or of deceived ambition. The keen 
observer may always, in these cases, discern the cause of 


260. ++-« PH YSIOGNOMY, 





the supreme catastrophe of expression, and 
know well how to represent in a very differe 


CHAPTER XXI. 
THE FIVE VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE, 


THE PHYSIOLOGICAL VERDICT.—THE GOOD AND EVIL MIEN.— 
PATHOLOGICAL PHYSIOGNOMY. 


THE human face is such a field of observation for us that 
from our childhood we consider it as the most important 
object in all the animated world which surrounds us. The 
most primitive savage, the likest to the ape, being after all a 
social animal, may be said to feel the need of looking 
another savage in the face to read there threatening or love, 
desire or grief.. Our children, from the tenderest years, 
before having received any education, very soon acquire 
enough experience to interpret the expressive language of a 
human face; in this they have a singular perspicacity, and 
know how to guess our desires, our ill-humour, our sus- 
picions, before we have expressed them by word. This 
experience grows from year to year, and ends by constituting 
- in each of us a certain physiognomical patrimony which, 
from the unconscious interpretation of the most automatic 
facts, rises by degrees to the examination of the most 
machiavellian of wrinkles, smiles, and tears. There we 
have the raw harvest whence science must extract the few 
ripe and wholesome grains and separate them from all the 
straw of hazardous guesswork and conjecture, and from all 
this obscure instinct which has a presentiment of the truth 
without being able to translate it into the clear and precise 
form of language. 

As for ourselves, after looking at a human face, we might 
not be able to say the colour of the eyes, the form of the 
chin, or the length of the nose, but we could nearly 


262 PHYVSIOGNOMY. 


always formulate certain judgments relating to one of the 
five great problems which a human face presents, : 

1. Condition of health or of sickness. 

2. Degree of beauty or of ugliness. 

3. Moral worth. 

4. Intellectual worth. 

5. Race. 

These five problems conduct to five different opinions which 
we can form on the face of a man, and which I shall call— 

1. Physiological judgment. 


2. Atsthetic " 
3. Moral 7 
4. Intellectual 4 
5. Ethnic 


When I have had the happiness of counting among my 
pupils some young intelligent people who followed the course 
of philology and philosophy at the Institute of Florence, I 
strove to quicken in them the spirit of observation which 
naturalists only exercise, and which all those who wish to 
study psychical phenomena should seek to develop by 
regular and rational exercise. Instead of this, just because 
these phenomena are complex and obscure, we abandon 
them to the guesses of empiricism, or rather pretend to 
reach them with the Icarus wings of metaphysic. 

This is the way in which I exercised my young people. 
I put before them a good photograph of a man or woman, 
and I invited them to express three judgments on this 
unknown face—one esthetic, another moral, and the third 
intellectual. I did not put the question of health or of 
race, because a photograph only furnishes insufficient data 
for the first, and the second exacts ethnological science 
which my students could not possess. After collecting 
the bulletins which contained the triple verdicts, I dis- 
cussed them with my pupils, asking the reasons for their — 
opinions; then I combined the figures and prepared my 
statistics. That the judgments might not be rambling, I only 


VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE. 263 


admitted three formule of verdict: deautzful, ugly, and medi- 
ocre for the zesthetic; good, wicked, and mediocre for the moral; 
intelligent, stupid, and mediocre for intelligence. 

Here is the result of my experiments gathered together in 
a single table which demonstrates all the utility of research 
of this sort. When theoretical, moral, metaphysical philo- 
sophy and so many other false sciences shall have been 
transformed into experimental psychology, thanks to the 
natural law of evolution, feeling and thought will only be 
studied by this method. 

OPINIONS ON PHYSIOGNOMIES. 


Aisthetic. Intellectual. 


Intellectual. 
Mediocre. 


Beautiful, 
Mediocre. 
Mediocre 


Roman Peasant 


Woman of Siam 


Negro of Zanzibar.... 


Little Girl of Bali.... 


Little Japanese Girl.. 


Man of Coromandel .. 


317. 3/273. ae 1/416. 8|128. 4/354. 8/381. 0/248. 1)270.9 





264 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


As one sees, there is most agreement in the moral judgment, 
and least in the intellectual. The esthetic judgment is 
balanced, and it is natural that it should be so. 

Feelings leave a more profound and characteristic trace 
on our faces than thought, and also the latter may 
entirely disappear in a photograph. The greater part of 
our photographs possess the precious talent of transform- 
ing a man of genius into an idiot, whether he was called 
Shakespeare or Dante. On this point I shall always recollect 
an egregious photographer who purposed me much kindness, 
and who by means of head-rest and artistic posing strove 
to make of me an Apollo ora Byron. He gave himself so 
much trouble to realise this dream that from portrait to 
portrait he continued to make me more and more ugly 
and stupid. I let him do as he would, and so long as my 
patience and complacency lasted, I submitted to the torture 
which he inflicted on me with the best and purest intentions. 
Finally, at the tenth or eleventh attempt, I said to this 
excellent friend, ‘‘This time you will attain your end, and 
have a type of the perfect cretin.” 

There is another reason why our opinions agree often on 
the moral value of a face. It is because from our earliest 
childhood we have directed our observations in this way ; 
for nothing is more important to us than to learn what we 
may expect of evil or of good from a man or woman whom 
weapproach. It is much more interesting to know if a man 
is good or bad, false or sincere, than to know if he is more 
or less beautiful, more or less intelligent. ‘To convince you 
of this, you have only to pretend to scold your child, letting 
signs of wrath and benevolence alternate on your face, 
This child will look you in the face, will study you uncon- 
sciously but profoundly ; he will in turn make experiments 
on you, smiling when you are serious, and remaining serious 
when you smile, in order that he may succeed in discovering 
if you are really angry or if you are joking. You can go 
through the experiment again with an intelligent dog, and 


VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE. 265 


seeing the same phenomenon reproduced, you will be 
convinced (if that is still necessary) that we must look for 
the alphabet of expression in children and in dogs, and not 
on the heights of metaphysics. 

When an esthetic opinion has to be formed, subjective 
influences bring a disturbing element; except in cases of 
extreme beauty or extreme ugliness, disagreements are 
frequent. 

Two other conclusions appear from our table. In 
judging strong expressions, every one agrees; while diver- 
gencies are very great when uncertain expressions are in 
question. ‘Thus I have been able to note that the agree- 
ment of opinion is at its maximum when a man of our race 
is in question, at its minimum when men very remote from 
our type, from a morphological point of view, are in 
question. 

For example, nine opinions in ten are found to agree 
in recognising the beauty of a pretty Roman girl; one 
only declared her of mediocre beauty. Thiebaut, one of 
the two Accas who were at Verona, was declared beautiful 
by ten votes, ugly by five, neither ugly nor beautiful by 
two. However, when either beauty or ugliness is extreme, 
their effect gains on that of the ethnical element, and leads 
to conformity of opinion. Thus a negro of Zanzibar was 
unanimously declared ugly and a little Japanese girl judged 
beautiful by seven out of nine votes. 

I have not collected, in the form of numerical data, my 
observations on opinions relative to the state of health or 
disease founded on the examination of the face. But, I 
can affirm, in these opinions that I call physiological that 
agreement is greater than anywhere else; perhaps because 
they are easier, perhaps because we are constantly exer- 
cising our faculties of observation in this direction. It is 
incredible the degree of perfection to which our senses 
may attain when they are always exercised in the same 
direction, and attention is imposed by powerful motives, 


266 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


How often we hear the verdicts—Oh! what a beautiful 
look ! it is really pleasant to see it!—Oh! poor man! what 
a bad look! He has not many days to live! and the like. 
What is more singular, in a like case the empirical judg- 
ment has great value, and is often equal to the opinion 
pronounced by men of science. 

If you ask men ignorant of the medical art the why of 
their estimation of health or disease, you will see your ad- 
miration for the range of popular observation grow. All 
these whys will comprehend the half of physiology and — 

pathology. They will all refer to the state of nutrition, the 
nature of the blood, or to the harmony and power of the 
innervation of the numerous muscles which cause the move- 
ment of the eye and the rest of the face. And these few 
shorthand signs, collected by popular experience, compre- 
hend so great a part of our life that they may furnish 
sufficient criteria for us to form certain opinions. 

What do we mean by a fine complexion if not a blood 
well furnished with corpuscles, neither too poor nor too 
plethoric, and circulating with suitable swiftness in the 
capillaries of the skin of the face? And, on the contrary, 
what do we mean by an ugly complexion if not a poor and 
vitiated blood, or extremely plethoric? And the vulgar 
are right in thinking that with the blood well constituted 
and circulating well we are at least half-way to perfect 
health. 

A face neither emaciated nor obese will perhaps only say 
this: A good nutrition does not reduce by the excess of 
debit over credit ; it does not fatten by the contrary excess. 
And inversely, does not the emaciation of the face pro- 
claim the deficiency of nutrition, which leads little by little 
to death ? 

In the empirical conception which the vulgar have formed 
of a healthy appearance, not only do the blood and general 
nutrition enter, but also a certain vivacity of the muscles, 
which, like well-armed soldiers, are ready to begin action 


VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE. 267 


at any moment. This vivacity of face is the sign that the 
herve centres are in the best possible condition. And 
then, with good blood, good nutrition, a powerful innerva- 
tion, how can one not be well? or how can we help feeling 
sympathetically awakened in us a great satisfaction at the 
sight of a picture of perfect health? All these empirical 
observations, collected, put in order, and despoiled of their 
scoria, will lead us to these two scientific definitions of a 
healthy and an unhealthy look. 

The healthy look means that the face expresses general 
nutrition, an excellent chemical composition of the blood, and 
a harmonious and powerful innervation. 

The unhealthy look signifies that one of these three 
conditions of good health is wanting. Either the nutrition 
is insufficient or excessive, or the blood is poor in cor- 
puscles, or poisoned, or ill-provided with oxygen, or finally 
the innervation is feeble or irregular. These three con- 
_ ditions can exist together, or two at once, and the gravity 
of our verdict must be proportioned to the greater or less 
number of the disorders which we perceive on a face, and 
each of which indicates a pathological condition of one of 
the organs, or of one of the functions indispensable to the 
vital work. 

In my Liysiology of Pain I described some permanent 
expressions of physical pain, which are so many forms of 
the look of ill-health ; but the authors who have written on 
general pathology and on clinical medicine have had to 
occupy themselves specially with this subject; for many 
times the outer aspect of the invalid, and especially of his 
face, suffices to make the nature of the evil guessed, and to 
put us on the way to a good diagnosis. ‘There are some 
special functions where the particular nature of the 
sufferings is so faithfully inscribed on the face that it at 
once suggests to the observant doctor the diagnosis before 
any examination of the invalid. The tuberculous, the 
asthmatic, the hypochondriacal, the cancerous, have a 


268 PHVSIOGNOMY. 


characteristic physiognomy and expression which even the 
vulgar can recognise. No one in modern times has treated 
the subject better than Polli, in his special study on the 
physiognomy of the sick,! a book of. his youth which is 
perhaps the most beautiful monument of his active and 
daring mind. We do not think it can be displeasing 
to the reader if we draw from this work, published half 
a century ago, and too much forgotten. 

Polli, after having defined pathognomy, or the study of 
morbid physiognomy, analytically examined according to 
age, temperament, and different features, the following 
special morbid faces :— 


Painful face. Lead colic face. 


Ill-auguring ,, Dropsical ,, 

Moribund or hippocratic face. Diabetic —,, 

Cerebral face. Intermittent fever _ face. 
Pectoral it Puerperal peritonitis ,, 
Abdominal fy Hydrometric 
Hydrocephalous ,, Arthritic Py 
Cardopathic 4 Scorbutic 9 
Diaphragmatic ,, Pellagra » 
Pestiferous > Tetanic ” 
Chleric a Convulsive ” 
Influenza + Hydrophobic 2 
Hysterical “i Parasitic » 
Typhoid 4 Onanistic »” 
Mesenteric “ 


It is true that in these subtle distinctions there is much 
that is scholastic and much exaggeration. Several of these 
physiognomies are mixed, and have not a well-determined 
individuality ; but still we must admire a great delicacy of 
observation in Polli. I shall recall here his most remark- 
able descriptions, which may also interest artists, since 
these latter have sometimes to represent certain diseased 
conditions in their pictures, 


? Polli Giovanni, Sagedo di Fistognomoniae Patognomonia, ete. Milan, 
1837. 


VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE. 269 


The Moribund Face.-—This has also been called the 
hippocratic, because Hippocrates made the first fearful 
description of it. 

In the moribund person all the features grow feeble, they 
lose the expression of life, and approach immobility and the 
rigidity of inanimate life. The skin of the forehead is 
stretched ; it becomes dry or is bathed in a cold sweat ; the 
livid and falling eyelids only imperfectly cover the eyeball 
in the moments of somnolence and slumber in such a way 
that a white transverse streak appears below them; the 
cornea is flattened, grows dull, and is covered with a layer 
of mucus; the eyeball sinks into the orbit and allows a few 
tears to escape ; the nose sharpens and grows cold, the ale 
falling and approximating; the nostrils reveal the inner 
hairs covered with a sombre grey dust; the temples become 
concave, and the zygomatic bones protuberant; the cheeks 
hollow; the ears dry and shorter; the lips discoloured and 
wan, the lower hanging so that the mouth is constantly 
_ open. 

The Onanistic Phystognomy.—Young people who have 
acquired unrestrained habits of onanism have a pale and 
leaden hue; frequently their skin becomes permanently 
of an icteric colour; on the forehead, on the temples, 
and on the sides of the nose, small sebaceous glands are 
changed into red pimples, which only disappear to give 
place to others; the eyes lose their brilliancy, they grow 
hollow, languid, misty, furtive; the pupil is constantly 
dilated and the sight gradually enfeebled, so much that 
prolonged reading induces suffering and tears; the lips lose 
their vermilion, they grow pallid and split; the teeth 
decay, the breath becomes strong and fetid. The expres- 
sion of the face is stupid and melancholy; the manners 
betray embarrassment and a certain timidity, which an 
expert eye can at once attribute to the proper cause. The 
body generally presents a less advanced development than 
is appropriate to the age, and frequently the beginning of 


270 PH VSIOGNOMY. 


wasting, and a tendency to stoop more and more, and a 
universal weakness. These individuals frequently unite the 
decay of an old man to the habit and pretensions of a 
young one; their dreams are often interrupted and fearful, 
their intellectual faculties obtuse, and the memory almost 
entirely disappeared. 

In woman the effects produced are analogous, although 
less rapid. The rosy colour of the cheeks gives place 
to a melancholy pallor, the lips are discoloured, the eye 
grows languid, the lower eyelids relaxed and of a livid and 
leaden hue; the nose sometimes becomes painful, the 
chest flattened and flabby; pustulous pimples disfigure 
the forehead, etc.} 

Polli also well described certain diseased constitutions. 
We will give as an example those of the apoplectic and of 
the phthisical.? 

The Apoplectic Constitution.—A massy and dumpy body, 
large and muscled limbs, round shoulders, a wide and 
very short neck, the digits of both hand and foot short and 
thick, heavy and difficult, but firm movements; a wide 
forehead ; a well-developed occiput, eyes generally small, 
eyelids often falling to the half of the eyeball, nose spongy, 
cheeks and chin voluminous, fat and lymphatic, the belly 
often inflated and obese, the head always warm, because 
the heart is near the brain, the mind irritable, unquiet, 
obstinate, nearly always vain and daring. 

The Phthisical Constitution.—This constitution is nearly 
always exactly the opposite of the preceding ; it is recog- 
nised by the slim, strained, delicate, irritable fibre, by the 
whiteness and delicacy of the skin, by the mingling of 
certain signs of scrofula and rickets, by wavy hair, by a — 
tapering and long nose, by very pronounced jaws, by the 
light colour of the hair and the beard, the size of the 
eyes, which are very open and generally blue (?), by 
the milky appearance of the sclerotic, by a slender, long, 

1 Polli, of. czt., pp. 331, 368. 2 Tbid,, p. 264, e¢ seq. 


VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE. 271 


forwardly inclined neck, where the blue veins are very 
visible, by a narrow and ill-formed chest, by a slim body, 
long and thin limbs. This constitution carries with it a 
quick, amorous, witty character, sometimes satirical, with a 
tendency to counterfeit others, and always a very precocious, 
intellectual development. Individuals of this temperament 
talk much, eat and sleep little, are of extreme susceptibility, 
love dissipation and light literature. 

There is, however, another variety of phthisical people 
who are wasted and squat in body, have disproportionately 
long limbs and ill-balanced movements; they are destitute 
of this gentleness and delicacy of feature proper to the first ; 
they are endowed with a feeble, indecisive, timid character, 
and present, like the others, a disposition to pulmonary 
consumption. 


Polli’s sketch of the phthisical physiognomy, taken when 
the malady has reached its last period, and when the 
wasting of the limbs has attained an extreme degree, is 
more successful. 

The eye is retracted under the superciliary arch; now 
lively and brilliant, as though it had gathered together 
in itself all the vital energy about to take flight, now veiled 
by a livid eyelid, and surrounded by a yellowish rim; the 
forehead is dejected rather than wrathful; the hair scattered 
and disordered, which gives much expression to the face, 
especially in women; the temples and cheeks are hollow, 
withered, and fleshless, the corners of the mouth pressed 
on the teeth in a bitter smile; the chin is pointed and 
angular; the lips thin, pale, and languid, no longer meet ; 
a small vermilion spot on the cheek-bones gives a deceitful 
aspect of life, similar, according to the expression of 
Balzac, to those reddenings of the west which announce 
the setting of the sun; the neck is long, thin, a little 
askew, limited by two prominent cords between which 
is a deep hollow, and in the man it is interrupted by the 


272 PHYSIOGNOM Y. 


scraggy kernel of the larynx; the intercostal spaces are 
wide, and the ribs are very apparent in such a way as to 
form a double ladder on the chest; in the woman the 
breasts almost disappear, nothing but the nipple remains; 
the clavicle is almost detached from the trunk, and 
threatens to pierce through the stretched skin; the limbs, 
almost bare of muscles, reduced to bones to which a little 
skin adheres, seem as if they must break at the first move- 
ment; the joints are large and very pronounced; the 
fingers and hand are dry, long, transparent, terminated by 
hooked and livid nails; the increasing heat of the skin 
and the quick pulse tell of an organism devoured by an 
inner flame, the stove of which is in the lungs; the living 
substance disappears little by little to leave but the frame 
of the body. This terrible disease, which frequently mows 
down the most beautiful and brilliant lives of youth, gives 
an expression of profound pain to the face, and to the 
moribund person whose intelligence has remained intact, 
who witnesses his own decay and the destruction of his 
body, who feels himself robbed of all the joys and all the 
happiness which the world promised to his youth, and 
has henceforth no solace but the miserable consolation of 
arousing pity. 


Well-drawn as these pictures are, they have yet the great 
defect of always oscillating between vague indefiniteness 
and caricatures of the truth, and the hypochondriacs who 
read this book will, each of them, find his own portrait in 
these pictures. 

The old doctors occupied themselves with pathognomy 
much more than the modern, because they had not 
percussion, auscultation, and all the modern means — 
of investigation in the examination of a sick man. But 
the doctors of our day leave it too much on one side; 
to-day, too, we might cry with Lavater, almost without 
changing his words, ‘‘A science of medicine resting on 


VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE. 273 


physiognomy would be a work worthy of you, illustrious 
Zimmerman.” 

Among the ancients, those who wrote most learnedly on 
pathognomy are, after the divine Hippocrates, Aretzeus, 
Leomnius, Emilus Campolongus, Wolff, Hoffmann, Schroder 
the elder. The work of Samuel Quelmalz, De srosopo- 
scopia Medica, Lipsia, 1784, is also very remarkable; as also 
that of Stahl, De facie morborum indice, seu morborum 
astimatione ex facie, Halle, 1700. Finally, we have to 
mention a more ancient book, which is very important: 
Thome Fieni, Philosophiac medici prestantissimt, Semtotica, 
sive de signis medicis, Lugduni, 1664. 


1 Lavater, Zssad sur la physonomie, etc., p. 125.. The Hague, 1786. 
Lavater has only devoted four pages of his immortal work to patho- 
gnomy, in volume iii., chapter iii., entitled On the Condition of 
Health and of Disease ; but in the little that he says he sets down with 
a certain hand the data of the problem; he shows that he has divined its 
importance, and has had a presentiment of the discoveries of the 
future, 


CHAPTER XXII. 


CRITERIA FOR JUDGING THE MORAL WORTH OF A 
PHYSIOGNOMY. 


THE GOOD AND THE EVIL FACE. 


SOME people pretend to possess naturally a certain divining - 


virtue, thanks to which it is enough for them to look at a 
man to know whether he is good or evil, a cheat or 
sincere ; sometimes they believe they can go so far as to 
affirm that he is avaricious or a great spendthrift, gallant 


or a relative of the Hebrew Joseph. This pretension, 


which at times betrays itself in a rare and precious skill in 


guessing the character of a man by the examination of his 


face, is not founded on the conviction which one would 
have of possessing a secret virtue, hereditary as genius or 
beauty, and which neither work nor will could give. The 
only secret is to have an observing mind which can be 
sharpened by exercise, like all other intellectual aptitude; 
in it there is no miracle or mystery of any sort. But evil is 
it for these privileged mortals if they attempt to pass from art 
to science and to translate into dogmas and precepts the 
fruit of their experience and of their sagacity! Then they 


begin to get misty and to express vaguely that which they ~ 


believe they understand perfectly. They transform into 
brutal aphorisms the most delicate and subtle divinations 
of their spirit of observation: a certain sign that a physiog- 
nomical art, but as yet no science, exists. ‘This is well seen 
in Lavater, the most penetrating perhaps of the observers 
of the human face, and in addition, a very skilful draughts- 
man. When he attempts to teach us what he knows and to 


WORTH OF A PHYSIOGNOMY. 2s 


make us share his convictions, he also falls into the vague 
and indefinite ; and I pity you, if in the practice of life you 
follow his precepts. Every moment you will be forced to 
recognise that Lavater has deceived himself ninety times 
out of a hundred, or that you have not been able to under- 
stand him, or, finally, that the men of his time did not 
resemble those of our own. 

By the side of these artists of the physiognomy there 
is the multitude which has also its claims to powers of 
divination, but which always judges amiss because it 
observes ill and judges still worse. Daily the fatal con- 
sequences of this ignorance and this baseless pretension 
are witnessed. A young man in love thinks that his beloved 
is an angel of goodness and modesty, and she is a viper 
or a Messalina. At other times, in choosing a servant 
or a messenger, we judge of his virtue by his face, and 
give our confidence to a cheat or to a man full of every 
vice. The false criteria to which we refer in such cases, 
and which make us fall into precipices, are innumerable ; 
but there are two more habitual than others, and which at 
each step may open a trap beneath our feet. 

Beautiful things are a pleasure to all; thus it is very rare 
that we think a man or woman wicked who speaks to us 
with a pretty mouth and looks at us with beautiful smiling 
eyes. The chances of error increase much when it is a 
man who has to judge a woman, or vice versd ; then sudden 
sympathy, desire, love bind our eyes and make us judge 
the beautiful to be good, the ugly to be wicked. The 
proverb according to which “‘a squinting man is never free 
from malice,” and which, under different forms, occurs in 
every language, is an audacious statement of this false 
criterium, which the vulgar employ to estimate the moral 
worth of a face. It is very true that extreme ugliness is 
often associated with a not very estimable character; but 
it is also very true that one may be ugly as Socrates 
and good as he, and that one may also be contemptible 


276 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


and perfidious with the face of Alcibiades or of Byron. 
How many daughters of Eve empoison our lives, sow 
around them treason and misfortune, and yet are more 
beautiful than the Venus of Milo! 

The other criterium which leads astray our judgment 
on the moral worth of a human face is only the inductive 
criterium ill employed. It has been observed that a one- 
eyed individual was wicked; it is thence concluded that all 
the one-eyed are individuals to be seized with tongs. A 
woman with a dimple in her chin has been found to be an 
angel, and thence it is concluded that all who have this 
dear dimple must be well-intentioned people. 

The only scientific criterium which allows a judgment to 
be hazarded in such obscure questions is that furnished by 
expression. All temptations to esthetic and anatomical 
criteria must be energetically resisted. Emotions, feelings, 
we have said a hundred times, are expressed in different 
ways, and expression by frequent repetitions leave on the 
face a permanent imprint, which has its significance, and 
which may reveal the whole character or the moral story of 
a man. All children have an apathetic expression, from 
which nothing can be read ; but it is almost impossible that 
a man above thirty years should bear no signs on his face 
which allow us to read some pages of his life, which reveal 
to us one of his virtues or one of his moral sores. 

But here again, how many difficulties, what uncertainty 
in the use of this one scientific criterium! A nervous and 
excitable man has a whole poem written in the wrinkles of 
his face; while I have known a beautiful lady who, after 
having passed the critical and even the hypercritical age, 
-had not yet one wrinkle. She had never wept, and almost 
never laughed, and for several years she had worn at night 
a little apparatus applied to each side of the forehead, 
fastened to the nape of the neck, and meant to draw the 
skin from the external angle of the eye, and thus to hinder 
the formation of the terrible crow’s-foot. 


WORTH OF A PHYSIOGNOMY. 277 


If I have been followed so far in my analytical study of 
different expressions, the reader will have a guide to direct 
himself in the interpretation of a human face: this chapter 
might then appear superfluous. However, as some syn- 
thesis is necessary, it will not be useless to concentrate the 
light of Diogenes’ lamp, having first decomposed it with 
the prism of analysis. 

The two fundamental characters, the two most certain 
signs of a good face, are the permanent expression of bene- 
volence and the absolute absence of all hypocrisy. 

To love, to love every one and always, to be incapable of 
hatred—this is the ideal of goodness ; and this is written on 
an angelic face by many negative and by some positive 
characters. 

Never to express either hatred, or cruelty, or passion, or 
rancour, or envy, or luxury, or debauchery—this is enough 
that the face may indicate a great fund of benevolence. If 
to these negative characters we add a half-smile which 
expresses permanent joy and the desire to please, to do well 
and to be loved, we have drawn the principal features of the 
physiognomy of the perfectly fine man. 

I would like these lines, which affirm an incontestable 
fact, pondered by those pessimists who believe man to be 
born for evil, and only suppose him capable of a little good 
under the influence of education, or as an effect of fear or 
of interest. It is precisely the contrary which is true, and we, 
civilised men, in whom the last traces of anthropophagy 
have disappeared, have the desire to love, the sorrow of 
hating. The good man is happy, and he expresses his 
serenity, his content in loving and in being loved by a 
perpetual smile, which touches us and makes us cry with 
all the warmth of a profound conviction: Oh! how good 
this man must be!—Oh! what a saint this woman must 
be! 

The habit of hatred, and of all vices which debase man 
and reduce him to the beast, impress, on the contrary, sadness 


278 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


on the face, discontent, which reveals continual displeasure, 
and a perpetual state of war against self and against others. 
The contempt, the antipathy which the wicked excite 
increases in them the rancour, the secret and incessant 
desire of vengeance, which gives to the features of their 
face a sad expression. There are men who have never 
smiled, unless ironically, or with a feeling of.satisfied hatred, 
and the muscles of their faces would absolutely refuse to 
express benevolence. 

Another almost constant character of the physiognomy 
of goodness is to be frank, open to every emotion, incap- 
able of hiding anything. In return a wicked face is always 
false. The good man, in fact, never distrusts others; he 
does not feel the need of withdrawing himself from an 
inquisitive observation ; while the cheat avoids the looks of 
others in his invincible fear that they may read within him. 
It is incontestable that in every language of civilised people 
a frank face is synonymous with a good face, and a false 
Jace with a wicked face. 

The frank physiognomy is that of the man full of serenity 
who does not flee from the looks of those who speak of 
him, or observe him. It expresses grief and joy, love and 
rage, without reticence, and without hypocrisy. 

In the opposite case the muscles are always in a state of 
agitation, vaguely contracted or relaxed, so to speak, totter- 
ing, as though they did not know what emotion to obey, 
and what expression to take. This uncertainty is especially 
remarkable in the vacillating look which passes from one 
expression to the other, and which is more frequently 
turned aside than it is straightforward. It is because of 
this that we say, an ob/igue or a furtive look. : 

If anything may be clearly read on this face it is the 
unconscious fear that the eyes of others should succeed in 
surprising the evil inclination or emotion of which the 
guilty is fully conscious. This defensive attitude becomes 
little by little habitual, and it frequently happens that the 


WORTH OF A PHYSIOGNOMY. 279 


man with a false look, even in an indifferent conversation, 
never looks his companion fully in the face. 

There we have one of the most certain revelations of a 
wicked character, and it is the more precious because the 
most hardened hypocrites do not succeed in dissimulating 
their crooked look under the thickest cloak of ingenuity, or 
by a forced smile. The muscles of the eye are always 
those which best resist hypocrisy, and which most easily 
obey the true emotions emanating from the nervous centres. 
One may weep when the soul is full of joy. It is possible 
to laugh with a lacerated soul; but it is almost impossible 
to openly front the look of others when the need is felt of 
hiding an emotion.} : 

Often the emotion which one desires to hide is so strong 
that it is not enough to look aside or to give to the gaze 
an uncertain character; then the eyes close convulsively, 
spasmodic contractions of the lips or of the nose are 


1 Dom Pernetty has described with much vivacity the struggles of 
expression maintained by a dissimulating man— 

** Does a dissimulating man wish to hide his feelings? Within hima 
struggle ensues between the true which he desires to conceal and the 
false which he would present. This combat throws into confusion the 
movement of the springs. The heart, whose function it is to excite the 
mind, drives it whither it should naturally go, Will opposes itself, 
bridles and holds it prisoner ; it forces itself to divert the course and 
its effects to bring about change. But much escapes, and the fugitives 
come to bring certain news of all that is passing in the secrecy of 
council. Thus the more it is desired to hide the truth the more 
the trouble is augmented, and the better it is discovered.” 

Lavater, who quotes this passage, saying that he is perfectly of this 
opinion, adds of his own the eloquent description of a seducer who 
denies having made a young girl a mother, while she presents her 
child to the judge, crying, ‘‘Here is his father.” Listen to the 
inspired language of the excellent pastor of Zurich— 

**T have before me two people, one of whom has no need to 
constrain herself to appear that which she is not; the other is making 
prodigious efforts, and must disguise them with the greatest care. The 
guilty seems to have more assurance than the innocent, but to a cer- 
tainty, the voice of innocence has more energy, eloquence, persuasion ; 


280 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


produced, or perhaps one yawns; let these symptoms 
always inspire you with distrust; they recall the backward 
or the sideward leap of the hare, which, pursued by the 
dog, returns on its own traces to cause the scent to be 
lost. 

The words good and wicked are too coarse to express the 
different forms of character as well as the corresponding 
expressions. They are only poor shorthand signs, respond- 
ing to the usages of ordinary life, to the imperfection of one 
language and to the shortness of human life. But art and 
science cannot content themselves therewith. A great 
romance writer employs an entire volume to describe the 
profound blackness of a villainous character, and Raphael 
presents to us the divine goodness of a mother under 
features which no one could reproduce. 

To the negative and positive characters of the physzog- 


to a certainty the look of the innocent is more open than that of 
the impostor. I have seen this look, with the emotion and the 
indignation which innocence and crime inspire, this look which could 
not be described, and which said most energetically: Darest thou 
deny it? I distinguished at the same time another look covered with 
cloudiness, I heard a rough and arrogant voice, but feebler, more 
muffled, which answered: Yes, Z dare deny it. In the attitude, 
especially in the movement of the hands, in the step when they were 
led away and brought back—the lowered look of the one, his dejected 
countenance, the bringing of the tip of his tongue to his lips at a moment 
when I represented all! that is solemn and formidable in the oath which 
I was about to exact from them—while in the other a firm, open, 
astounded gaze, which seemed to say: /ust Heaven! and thou 
wouldst swear! WReader, you may believe me, I heard, I felt the 
innocence and the crime.” —(Lavater, of. cé¢., t. ii., p. 13.) 

The same writer has some golden words on frank faces— 

‘But where then is this simple and pure probity, recognised 
without effort and which is communicated without reserve? Where is 
this gaze which expresses candour, cordiality, fraternal affection, a 
naturally open gaze, without the need of forcing or paining it, an 
assured look which is never diverted nor wanders? ; 

** Happy the man who has found it! Let him sell all that he possesses 
to buy the field which holds such a treasure.” —(/é7d., p. 17.) 


WORTH OF A PHYSIOGNOMY. 281 


nomy of goodness might be added others of a higher order, 
which tend to idealise its expression. In the complete 
absence of all expression of evil, in the security of the smile, 
are then added a carriage full of dignity and courage, and 
a habit of looking up as though one would embrace all 
humanity in a single look of love, and contemplate vast and 
infinite horizons. The heroism of a sudden sacrifice 
suffered, or the constant abnegation of a whole life, the 
generosity of pardon or tenderness for all the pains of the 
earth, have been translated into immortal expressions by 
those great artists who have known how to charm the eyes, 
as they will always charm in the future, in representing 
Christ or the Martyrs. They have known, divining science 
by a sublime intuition, how to throw on a groundwork of 
perfect goodness the most brilliant tones of singular virtue, 
of generous impulses, of noble heroism. Rare expressions 
in nature! still more rare on marble and on canvas! for 
these are the fugitive gleams which appear one instant to 
disappear directly, and art scarcely succeeds in fixing them, 
thanks to happy observation and to a still happier 
divination. 

At the opposite pole is found a face much less rare than 
the preceding, and which has been called patsbulary, doubt- 
lessly because the man who bears it seems predestined to 
the gallows or the prison. Here there is not only the abso- 
lute absence of all benevolence of expression or mere 
falsity of look. Every ferocious instinct has left its furrow 
on this face; every vice has deposited there its livid and 
obscene lines. Hatred, luxury, thirst for gold, inertia 
which wine alone can conquer, weakness which rage alone 
can aid, daily rancours which accumulate like the scoria of 
a volcano, a debauched sensualism and an invincible taste 
for filth, the harshness of a slow and incurable suffering, a 
ferocious laugh, the desire to see an ocean of blood, and to 
hear a chorus of groans, hatred under its harshest form, 
which pit the skin, pierce the flesh, and dry up the 


: 

s "a 
22. PHYSIOGNOMY. 
marrow, an infinite baseness coupled as with < 
to the ferocity of the carnivora; such are in bead 
elements of a patibulary face, such as may be - 
the great places of expiation, called reformato ries | 


prisons, : ae t 






CHAPTER XXIII. 


CRITERIA FOR JUDGING THE INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF A 
FACE. 


THE STUPID AND THE INTELLIGENT FACE. 


Let us look a man, woman, or child in the face and ask 
this question: What intelligence is there under this 
cranium? What are the treasures of thought, of imagina- 
tion, of will, which lurk behind this brow ? 

These questions may be inspired by simple curiosity; but 
they may also be associated with great disquietude when 
they apply to the face of one of our children, of the woman 
we love and whom we would see ours for ever, or of the 
political man to whom we think of entrusting the destinies 
of the country. Even in climbing down from these heights 
into the plain of ordinary life, how many times have we not 
need of reading in the face of a servant, a farmer, a 
partner, an employé, the degree and nature of his or her 
intelligence ? 

The first time that I had the honour of meeting King 
Humbert, he inquired about my studies with lively interest, 
and said to me that it would be a precious gift to be able to 
divine the aptitude of a man by the shape of his head, and 
he asked me if science was in a condition to give us some 
rules to this effect. 

‘If the old books of physiognomy are opened, many 
replies to the question of King Humbert will be found 
therein. 

Not only could the old physiognomists tell us precisely 


284 PHVSIOGNOMY. 


the quantity of intelligence enclosed in the head of a man; 
but they taught us to recognise his special aptitudes and his 
peculiar talents. | 

Giovanni Battista Dalla Porta gives us the following 
description of the clownish mind :—1 

‘‘'The parts which are about the neck and the arms are 
fleshy, bound and fastened together, but Polemon and 
Adamantius say that the cavities are united, that the great 
vessels of the tower of the neck are fastened, and that 
round xorvAn is not seen. The shoulders high, forehead 
large, fleshy and round, the eye pale (kwwov), stupid 
(that is to say, languid as the eyes of the goat are 
stupid). Agostino di Sersa, in consequence of his ignor- 
ance of the Greek language, translated: legs, approach- 
ing talons, fleshy and round, large and fleshy jaws. 
But Polemon and Adamantius had said: long legs and 
back. I suppose that in the text of Aristotle there is a 
fault, and that he does not mean to say mayeia, but 
Bpaxeiat, that is to say, short, because the length of the 
arms and of the legs indicates a well-constituted intelligence, 
and inversely short legs are a natural imperfection and 
mark of coarseness. Polemon and Adamantius say, Slim 
joints, short neck. The extremities imperfect, they add, 
the neck fat and short, the face wide and fleshy, give an 
expression of foolishness and stupidity, completed by 
gesture, figure, and the habits betrayed by the face. But 
the text, as I have already remarked, is very corrupt. 
The same indicate as a sign of coarseness a very white 
skin (but Polemon says: not very white, but very dark, 
which is better, and I wonder that this was neglected by 
the other writer, because a very pale or a very deep colour 
betrays a natural imperfection, which is harmful to genius), 
a prominent belly, small and neat joints, well-knit extremi- 
ties. Here the text of Polemon, who says 7éAeva, must 
be corrected by that of Adamantius, who says aréAn; for 

1 Dalla Porta, Dela fisonomia dell? huomo. Padova, 1627. 


INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF A FACE... 285 


these signs of the ingenious*-man and of the coarse man 
are quite opposite; the first has very distinct fingers, well 
detached from each other; the second has them bound and 
attached together. Avicenna, describing the face of a 
well-constituted man, gives as marks of little ingeniosity 
and intelligence the great belly, short fingers, rounded 
face and head, too large or too small a figure, the forehead, 
neck and face fleshy, the face similar to a semi-sphere, the 
jaws large, the head and forehead rounded, the face long, 
the neck thick, and the movements of the eye very slow.” 

In all this medley, which Dalla Porta gives as the portrait 
of the stupid man, some rare truths which he has divined 
float to the surface among an ocean of useless words, 
mingled with positive errors; for example, that which con- 
sists in indicating as a mark of intelligence the length of 
the arms. All the world to-day knows that the most 
stupid races have longer arms than the others. 

Our Neapolitan physiognomist is not happier when he 
undertakes to give us the portrait of the zzelligent man, 
borrowing the elements thereof from the works of Aristotle, 
Polemon, and Adamantius— 

“They have soft and moist flesh, neither too rough nor 
too smoth, but between the two; the face neither long nor 
short ; a white complexion, of agreeable aspect, and inclin- 
Ing towards vermilion; soft hair, moderately abundant ; 
large and rather round eyes; the head of medium size, in 
proportion to the neck; the shoulders rather falling; the 
legs and knees little fleshy; the voice clear, intermediate 
between low and high; the hands long, the fingers long and 
sufficiently delicate. ‘They laugh little, weep little, and joke 
little. ‘They have an expression of animation and of joy.” 

Further on Dalla Porta gives us his own portrait :— 
“Here is my face,” he says, ‘“‘and it is put there not for 
vanity, but that each may see my imperfections.” One 
thing deprives this affected modesty of all its value, which 
is that the portrait is given us in the chapter which treats of 


286 PH YVSIOGNOMY. 


the ¢alented man. As though this were not enough, he 
ends the chapter with these words—‘“ My face is like that 
of my brother, Giovan Vincenzo, a great student of 
science.” 

Honoratius Niquetius, Jesuit and theologian, published 
in 1648 a Physiognomia Humana, in which at page 317 he 
also gives us his description of the Virt ingegost et virt 
hebete. 

Here it is— 

*‘Ingentost virt figura.—Caro mollis, cutis subtilis, statura 
mediocris; oculi ccerulei, fulvi; color candidus; capilli plane 
molliores, longee manus, digiti longi, mitis aspectus ; super- 
cilia coniuncta, modicus risus, frons exporrecta, tempora 
modice concava, caput in figuram, mallei conformatum e¢ 
hoc ultimun praestantissimum signum. 

** Hebett virt figura.—Carnosum collum, cornosa brachia, 
sicut et facies, lumbi; costs, pectus, mamille, occipitum 
cavum aut rotundum, nec extans ullo modo, frons magna, 
carnosa; oculus pallidus, caprini aut aquili coloris, aspectus 
hebes,” etc. 

A little after Cardan, in his Me/oposcopia (Paris, 1658), 
pushed his horoscopical and astrological divinations to an 
absurd extreme. 

Mgr. Giovanni Ingegneri, bishop of Capo d’Istria, says 
in his Zable of Remarkalle Things (Padua, 1626, p. 61), 
‘‘A head small in proportion to the body is a sign of 
mediocre intelligence.” This is very good, but he takes 
from its value by adding, “A small head indicates a 
wrathful man and a rancorous man.” 

These few examples suffice to give an idea of the criteria 
which served the old physiognomists in reading intelli- 
gence on the human face. Let us now arrive at an 
exposition of truly scientific criteria. 

The experiments which I have made and which I have 
‘described above would be discouraging if one forgot that 
‘they had to do with portraits and not with living faces. 


SNe eLLECTUAL VALUE OF A FACE. 287 


For beauty, criteria are nearly all anatomical; for the 
moral value, they are nearly all expressive; but to express 
intellectual value they are at once both anatomical and 
expressive, and it is not possible to determine exactly what 
part each of these two groups of criteria has in our judg- 
ments. It seems to me, however, that generally the 
anatomical criteria indicate with precision capital differences, 
while the expressive elements give signs of the slight 
differences and the different style of mind in men belonging 
to the same race. Niccolini (whose mask I possess) could 
not even when dead be confounded with a negro, nor even 
with an ordinary man; but all those who visit my museum 
and to whom I show the mask of Mazzini ask me if it is 
that of a saint. 

Anatomical characters which serve us in determining the 
probable intelligence of man by the examination of his 
face are all drawn from the relative development of the 
face and of the cranium, whether it be that with a glance of 
the eye we judge the volume of the brain, or whether, by 
roughly measuring certain angles, we determine the pro- 
jection of the face on the skull. 

Many centuries before craniology had been created the 
Greek artists, those great observers, had given to Minerva 
and to Jupiter a strong head, a spacious forehead, so 
orthognathous a face that sometimes the facial angle leans 
forward and exceeds go”. On the contrary, they made the 
satyr microcephalous, with a narrow and retreating fore- 
head, and thick and prominent jaws. To-day still, the 
crowd calls the human head which presents many simian 
characters stupid. Look at the head of a chimpanzee: you 
will see how there are idiots which resemble it, and recall 
how you are repelled by a flattened nose, two enormous 
ears, a narrow and retreating forehead, characters which 
all belong to the ape. 

Some anatomical characters, without being directly 
related to the capacity of the cranium or to its situatiom 


288 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


relative to the face, are, however, in consequence of the 
morphological harmony, signs of a lower rank in the 
intellectual series. No high race has a very small skull, or 
very large ears, or a flat nose, or a retreating chin; and 
when we meet with these characters on the face of a man 
of our race, we are invincibly led to consider him of little 
intelligence, perhaps as an idiot, even before he has opened 
his mouth or accomplished before us a psychical act 
permitting us to judge him. 

The following table gives a vesumé of the actual state of 
the science relative to the value of the anatomical guides 
taken for the determination of the place of a human face in 
the intellectual series :— 


ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS OF 


THE INTELLIGENT FACE, THE STUPID FACE. 
Large head, beautifully oval. Small head or very irregular. 
Wide, high, and prominent fore-| Narrow, retreating, smooth fore- 
head. head. 
Eyes large rather than small. Eyes rather small. 
ees or medium and beauti- Large and ugly ears. 
u e 
Face small and not very muscular. | Large and very muscular face. 
Not very prominent jaws. Prominent jaws. 
Large and prominent chin. Retreating and small chin. 


I have desired to present this picture, thanks to which 
you might, in the narrow ray of your experience, verify the 
uncertainty of these anatomical characters when they are 
used alone to judge the intelligence by the face. I am 
certain that every one would be able to find some excep- 
tion weakening the rule, and present to me a stupid man 
with big eyes or pretty little ears, and on the contrary a man 
of genius with small eyes or great ears. But I am equally 
sure of another thing ; it is that such exceptions, very easy 
to find for each anatomical character taken separately, 
will be much rarer if two or three of the characters are 


INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF A FACE. 289 


grouped together, and will become almost impossible if 
account is taken of all these features at once in a com- 
parative study. 

The most important characters are those drawn from 
expression, which may make manifest an extreme energy of 
thought on the grotesque face of Socrates, as on the Apollo- 
like face of Goethe. 

The two great expressive centres of the face are always 
the eye and the mouth. The first best expresses the degree 
of intelligence, and the second the force or feebleness of 
will. 

Common and empirical oupmion attributes to the man of 
intelligence a vivacious eye, to the stupid man a dull eye. 
In reality, in the first, centrifugal energies are continually 
disengaged which find a large exit in the numerous muscles 
of the eye ; hence the movements and oscillations of these 
muscles, hence again the veil of tears which renders the eye 
brilliant. 

In the intelligent man, not only the eye, but all the 
muscles of the face have a mobility, a vivacity, a constant 
tonicity, thanks to which they are always ready to rapidly 
express the most different emotions. 

The face of a man of genius is a soldier with arms and 
baggage, always ready to fight ; that of the stupid man is an 
ex-lazzarone, always minded to sleep, and yawning half- 
an-hour before deciding that he ought to rise. 

The stupid face has relaxed muscles, a half-open mouth, 
often one eyebrow higher than the other, and a vague and 
uncertain look which is directed to no definite point. 

In the intelligent face all the muscles are half contracted; 
they are apt, always in action. In the face of the man of 
genius there is a continual phosphorescence of emotions 
and of thoughts which pass and repass, and a permanent 
crepitation of energies. 

Between the stupid face of the idiot and the face of 
Voltaire, all salt and pepper, there is the ordinary face 

19 


290 PHYSIOGNOMY. 






















which represents a medium quantity of thought and of 
will. 
The expressive centre of the mouth expresses better than 
the eye the passions which animate thought, and the energy 
of will. 
The idiot, in whom will is very feeble, has a hanging jaw, 
often permitting the escape of saliva. In the man of mind, 
but of not very energetic will, the mouth is always half open. 
In the energetic man the jaw is closed; often even the 
muscles contract strongly, and the chin is thrown forward. — 
_ The maximum of will nearly always corresponds to this 
expressive formula—a J/arge chin thrown forward, and 
mouth closed. 
On the contrary, flaccid will is represented by a smad/ 
retreating chin, an opened or half-opened mouth. 
Intellectual expression may take exaggerated and almost 
pathological forms; they can always be reduced to a muscular 
tic which are involuntary, passing and intermittent contrac- 
tions of some facial muscles. These “¢ often accompany 
the abuse of thought, and I have met them often in men 
of genius, otherwise very different from each other in the 
nature of their intelligence. nets 
I shall cite Lombardini, the great hydraulicist, Perruzzi, a 
man of singular activity and of extraordinary political 
subtilty, and Carducci, the greatest of living Italian poets. — 
The first has always had singular ticit on the face, which — 3 
have increased with age; then to the convulsions of the © 
face succeeded those of the trunk, of the arm, and of the 3 
hand, and finally, within later years, they became aug- — 
mented so as to constitute a veritable chorea which ~ 
rendered the use of speech very difficult to this great maa 7 
Perruzzi has also two or three ticit on the face which he - 
cannot control, and which are the more proncateaas the 
intenser the thought. On the face of Carducci at certe 
times a veritable tempest breaks out ; lightnings shoot fi 
his eyes, and an earthquake possesses his muscles. Shae 
% 


ae 
’ +; ‘ 


INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF A FACE. 2091 


All this may be applied to intelligence taken as the sum 
of all the psychic energies; but each form and each 
moment of the thought has its proper expression which we 


have tried to define in our analytical studies. I shall 


content myself with adding here a few lines to complete 
the pictures of intellectual expression. 

The two most striking expressive pictures of intellectual 
energy are those of the imagination which creates, and of 
meditation which seeks. In the expression of imagination 
every movement which has its centre in the eye or in the 
mouth seems to be directed from the middle of the face 
towards the periphery, so that the general expression is 
centrifugal. The eye is widely opened, and looks up; 
the mouth opens and enlarges. At the same time the 
neck is reared and the head raised, and forces us to 
look up or towards the horizon. 

In the meditative face, on the contrary, every movement 
starts from the periphery, and is concentrated towards the 
middle of the face; the eyes are half closed, or even closed ; 
the mouth is also closed ; the head bent on the breast, as 
though the organism were bent on itself, to seek in itself 
that which the inspired man seeks outside in the wide 
horizon of nature. 

The expression of imagination often passes to patho- 
logical and convulsive forms, and may, with some modifica- 
tions, become inspired, poetic, delirious. ‘The meditative 
expression, by its exaggeration, may become ecstatic, fixed, 
and almost approach that of the stupid face. In expression 
it is a constant law that extremes touch and mingle in 
almost the same tint. 


CHAPTER XXIV.} 


THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF GESTURES AND THE EXPRESSION 
OF CLOTHES. 


Ir at present there is no hope of the triumph of Volapuk 
or of any other universal language, we see many languages 
disappearing spontaneously and in various ways. ‘They 
vanish either through the dying out of the, people who talk 
them, or by the fusion of a small nation in the mass of a 
larger nation which absorbs it. It is well known that in the 
vast regions of the United States there does not exist a 
single dialect, while once even a single province contained 
various dialects. Over this, however, we cannot rejoice so 
much as in the fact that, if we have no universal tongue, 
we have a universal writing. In Europe all languages are 
written with few varying characters, and Morse’s telegraphic 
alphabet is used all over the world. | 

There exists, however, a true and distinct universal 
language which is understood by every one, and was 
invented by no one, and that is the language of gestures. 
I refer, of course, to spontaneous and imitative gestures, 
and not to the conventional gestures of deaf mutes, which 
are nothing else than a form of handwriting. 

The language of gesture is found among all nations; but 
it is necessary to give a precise and scientific definition of 
it. Some narrow too much the conception of gesture, 


others enlarge it too much, introducing other heterogeneous ~ 


elements. Among these is Dr. Hérincourt, who believes 


* This chapter has been written by the Author specially for the 
English edition of this work. 


iN 
“a 


PHYVSIOGNOMY OF GESTURES. 203 


that ‘‘ gesture includes all the muscular and other functions 
which result in the sound of the voice, the way of speaking, 
the expression of the face, the movements of the arms, and 
the carriage.”! 

I believe that I shall be giving a scientific definition of 
gestures when I call by that name a// those muscular move- 
ments which are not absolutely necessary to complete an act or 
a psychic function, but which accompany tt by sympathy of 
nervous influence. 

The language of gesture in man is only auxiliary to the 
spoken language, while it is the sole language of all 
animals which emit no sounds. Insects, especially ants, 
talk with each other by means of their antenne, or other 
parts of the body, and although we cannot generally 
understand them, they communicate emotions and ideas. 

Gesture is a very elementary and simple language, but it 
is very clear, because it is founded on the basis of our 
common psychic nature. It serves sufficiently well to 
express the simple emotions and needs, but it is no longer 
of use when we wish to express abstract ideas and more - 
complicated sensations. ‘Try to say by means of signs, not 
to a savage, who would not understand you even with the 
help of words, but to a civilised man like yourself, that you 
are a monist, and he certainly will not understand you. In 
my long journeys through South America and India I 
frequently came in contact with men who spoke languages 
unknown to me, but with the help of gestures alone I was 
always able to make known my wants, and to make 
contracts for the acquisition of objects. 

Gestures are not all alike; they may be divided into two 
great categories—viz., automatic and voluniary. Often, 
however, these pass into one another by intermediate 
gradations. 

In walking we always move our arms, though we do not 
perceive it. That is an automatic and involuntary gesture. 

1 La Graphologie, Revue Philosophigque, vol. xx. (1885), p. 499. 


204 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


But if we are very glad or very angry we give to these 
movements of the arms an unusual character, which 
becomes the expression of joy or of anger, and of these 
expressions we may be conscious or not, in different 
cases. 

The automatic gestures are important to study, because 
they are the outcome of the whole nervo-muscular organ- 
ism, and form part of the physiognomy of a race or of an 
individual. I venture to say that gestures are sometimes 
more important than the face, in which we are only con- 
cerned with the anatomy of its muscles and bones, while 
gestures, besides these, comprise the structure and the phy- 
siology of the cerebro-spinal system. Every one will 
recollect that children sometimes resemble their parents 
more by their gestures than by their faces; though in 
these cases, beside the influence of heredity, there enters 
imitation, which strengthens and rivets the anatomic fact. 

In biology and in psychology (which is the same thing) 
the equation r0o0= 100 is unlike, and more important than, 
2=2. In this connection I shall always remember a 
walk in the neighbourhood of Rome with a joyous troop of 
artists, all Italians ; one of us alone was a Roumanian, and 
among the Roumanians (if they will not be offended) there 
is so much Slavic blood that the Latin element, if it exists, — 
is completely hidden. Now this Roumanian had an alto- 
gether Italian face, and no one would have been able to 
distinguish him in this respect from the Latins whom he 
accompanied. This fact surprised the artists, who are 
accustomed to observe features and expressions with as 
much attention as anthropologists and psychologists. I 
remarked to them that they should observe the walk and 
gestures of this Roumanian gentleman ; and in fact, while 
in all the manifold elements of the human face he was an 
Italian, seen from behind he walked like a Slave or a 
German, 

You may often confuse a German or an Englishman with 





i " 


_PHYSIOGNOMY OF GESTURES. 205 


an Italian or a Frenchman if you look at their faces, but 
never, or very seldom, when you see them walking. 

Many centuries ago Petronius, who, like all true and 
great poets, was an acute observer of men and things, 
said—‘“‘Nec auguria novi nec mathematicorum ccelum 


 Curare soleo, ex vultibus tamen hominum mores colligo, et 


cum spatiantem vidi, quid cogitet scio.”! 

In Europe, owing, with few exceptions, to race, there is a 
northern method of gesture and a southern method. I 
observed eloquent evidence of this fact, which is obvious to 
all, during my travels in Scandinavia and Lapland. “In 
Germany one already begins to see the men moving with 
another system of gesture, and the women, to keep them 
company, do the same; but in Scandinavia the curved line 
of movement is absolutely prohibited in all cases and in all 
directions. ‘They walk in angles, they smile in angles, they 
sit and they rise and they talk in angles ; and these angles 
are acute. You may find beauty, force, majesty, a thousand 
esthetic elements of the human figure, but grace is absent 
and unknown. Who will give me one of these flexible 
movements which are a poem of eloquence and pleasure, 
that grace of the Greco-Latin race? ”? 

If I had to trace the main outlines of a comparative 
science of human gesture among various races—at all 
events those that I have noted—I would say that the Latin 
race had in their gestures a gracious and voluptuous 


manner, that those of the Anglo-Saxon race are rigid and 


angular, those of the highest Oriental races majestic and 
Olympian, those of negroes and Australians ape-like. 

Automatic and involuntary gestures often aid indirectly 
the muscular action which they accompany. Thus it is 
with the movements of the arms in walking. In other cases 
in which a mechanical reason for the gesture does not exist, 

1 Petronii Satire, 126, 22-24. 

2 Mantegazza, Viaggio tx Lapponta coll amico Sommier, p. 10. 
Milan, 1881. 


296 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. 


or is not obvious, we are dealing with extra currents which 
are diffused by sympathy, irradiating muscular regions out- 
side the action of work. Automatic gestures are found 
most frequently in the arms, less frequently in the head, the 
neck, the trunk, rarely in the feet. 

Independently of the limbs moved, gestures may possess 
a human character—that is, they may be weak or strong, 
slow or quick, rhythmic or disordered, centrifugal or centri- 
petal. Experience very soon teaches us to estimate their 
expressive value, and, without the aid of language, often 
even without looking into the individual’s face, we say, 
**He is glad, or sad, or in despair, or enraged, or mad.” 

All muscular labours, all the acts of the psychic life are 
accompanied by special gestures, which do not form an 
integral part of the picture of expression, but which 
accompanies it as a secondary element, I will limit myself 
to the examination of a few of these gestures, 

Gestures of Watking—When the arms are free they 
follow the ambulatory rhythm, giving a special feature to 
the mode of walking. Place yourself at a window and 
observe the passers. ‘They all move their arms, and some, 
by the movement of their upper limbs alone, tell you 
whether they are angry or annoyed, sad or glad. Race, 
the varying energy of character, muscular force, age, sex, 
a passing or permanent emotion, are all elements which 
contribute to furnish their tribute to the gesture of the 
arms in walking. Besides the organic elements, there are 
other extrinsic circumstances which modify it, more than 
anything else, the form of the garments. To convince 
oneself of this it is sufficient to observe people walking in 
summer and in winter, according as they wear mantle or 
overcoat. Without observing the thermometer we can, 
by looking through our windows at the passers, judge of 
the degree of temperature. The naked man walks best 
of all. The clothed Orientals give to their ambulatory - 
gestures a grace and majesty which cannot be imagined by 





PHYSIOGNOMY OF GESTURES. 207 


those who have not seen them. Our own clothes render 
us more agile, but they rob us of many beauties of human 
movement. 

The Orator’s Gestures.—Oratorical gestures are still more 
necessary and more irresistible than those of walking, and if 
we were to bind the arms of the most eloquent man in the 
world while he was speaking, he would either faint or 
explode, or in less disgraceful case would be compelled to 
lose more than half of his real efficacy. Every orator has 
his own characteristic gestures, which are an integral part 
of his oratorical style. Cavour, who did not always find 
language obedient, twisted and lowered his head; Minghetti 
without a paper-knife in his hand could not succeed in 
finding that lofty eloquence habitual to him, by which he 
so much resembled the great English orators; Cavallotti, 
small of stature, and always violent in thought and form, 
repeatedly struck the air with his arms, as though to fix 
and rivet his ideas in the ears of the hearer. 

The Worker's Gestures.—It would seem a priori that one 
who is working ought to be very economical of his muscular 
movements, making use only of those which are strictly 
necessary for the work in hand. In practice it is not so; 
nearly always work is accompanied by rhythmical move- 
ments which give no mechanical aid to the work, but which 
render it more pleasurable, and therefore easier. 

The influence of pleasure on work has been too little 
studied. We only know that it renders it easier, and that 
weariness either is not produced or becomes imperceptible 
when work is pleasant. The physical cause of this fact 
is quite unknown. Every one knows, however, that it is 
one thing to take a walk for pleasure and another thing to 
take the same road on business affairs; and gymnastic 
exercises are more beneficial to health when they are 
pleasurable than when they are only the fulfilment of a 
duty. The song of the sailors hauling the ropes, or of 
rowers who accompany their movements with rhythmical 


298 PHYSIOGNOMY. 


sounds are as ancient as man and universal in every race. 
The Brazilian negroes, when they have to carry great 
burdens, are preceded by one or more of their companions 
carrying funnels full of sand and stones to mark the march 
with rhythmical sounds, and those who before were sinking 
under their burdens harmoniously move their limbs and 
facial muscles in the strangest and most ridiculous way. 
invita Minerva holds true not only for intellectual work, 
but for muscular work. 

The expression of clothes would deserve special study, 
because the excitement of our emotions passes, voluntarily 
or involuntarily, to the textures by which we are covered. 
Dress is certainly one of the human elements by which 
races, nations, and individuals express most of themselves, 
and certainly the acute Rabener did not exaggerate when 
he wrote A/eider machen Leute (the clothes make the man), 
an idea, for the rest, which we find expressed in the proverbs 
of many and various nations. It is not, however, of methods 
of clothing, nor of the various materials with which man 
covers himself that I propose to speak, but of the part 
which dress takes in expression when the movements of our 
muscles are diffused in the peripheral territory of that 
which covers us. The amount of clothing is one of the 
elements which most influences and modifies expression, as 
it is natural that the various forms of which clothing is 
capable should increase in the ratio of the territory of 
which they have to dispose. At opposite poles we may 
place the coolies of Madras, whose clothing consists of less 
than a square foot of cotton stuff, with which they cover 
the sexual organs, leaving all the rest of the body naked; 
and the sexori¢a of Euterias, who in my time, besides all the 
ordinary garments of European ladies, wore twelve exaguas 
(petticoats), with respective and varied lace adornments. 
The expression of clothing in the coolie’s case, therefore, 
only holds two notes relative to the organs covered by 
the fig-leaf, while the elegant Euterian possesses a rich 





PHYSIOGNOMY OF GESTURES. 299 


dictionary of possible movements with which she knows 
how to express a thousand various gradations of modesty, 
grace, and coquetry. 

The mobility of dress exercises a very great influence on 
the zesthetic and the expansion of the expression. It is 
sufficient in this connection to note our European garments, 
in which we are as it were imprisoned, and the mobility of 
the old Roman pallium, and of the present garments of 
India. The slight mobility of our clothes adapts us better 
for the various tasks of our laborious and combative 
existence, but its concealment of expression and frequent 
disfigurement of the anatomical beauty of our bodies is the 
chief despair of modern art. 

As for the muscles of the face, body, and limbs, so also 
for dress, there is a centrifugal and centripetal expression, 
an excentric and aconcentric. We see the first generally 
accompanying pleasure and love; the second with the more 
ordinary emotions of sorrow and hatred. In dress, as in 
the limbs, when the emotion reaches its highest degree, 
every specific character tends to disappear. The greatest 
analogy between the movements of the body and those of 
the clothes is found during accesses of pain and anger and 
hate. The tearing of the hair, the biting of the lips and 
nails, the laceration of the flesh, correspond to the tearing 
of buttons, of ribbons, of cuffs, and the other fragile 
portions of our dress up to the complete destruction of all 
the clothing. 

Every emotion, every passion, every intellectual labour 
may find some expression in the clothing, and this may 
vary in its turn according to the differing degrees of emotion, 
passion, and thought, just as these contribute to modify 
physical expression, sex, age, character, state of health, 
and all those other elements which we are accustomed to 
include under the name of environment. Character, whicn 
is avery large and various synthesis, can express itself 
partly in the way in which we move our garments, and 


300 PH YSIOGNOMY. 


the most ordinary observers can recall in this connection 
the appearance of the miser and the prodigal, the candid 
man and the hypocrite, the neat man and the disorderly. 
The rhetorical expression, also, of many poems is 
strengthened by elements supplied by clothing, and any 
one who has had the good fortune to see the great actor, 
Gustavo Modena, will never forget the high art (in this 
case the most beautiful expression of nature) with which, 
as Orestes, he played jovially with his Greek chlamys, or, 
as the dying Louis XI., convulsively caressed his royal 
mantle. 

Finally, the stick, which is not a garment, nor adapted to 
any part of our body, is carried variously by various 
individuals, and is able to express the emotion which 
agitates us, joy or sadness, anger or annoyance. Heredity, 
also, exercises an influence on the mode in which we carry 
a stick ; I, for example, without having known my paternal 
grandfather, carry my stick in exactly the same manner as 
he, so as to wear away obliquely the extremities of the sticks 
I use. 

If artists would observe with greater attention even the 
most minute and insignificant facts of expression, they 
would give us historical pictures more exact and more 
conformed to the truth of nature. 


Sai 





301 


‘maseyy “iq Aq Aja100g peosojodoryjuy uvipeyy 94} jo Armbur 94} 0} Surp10900V 


APPENDIX. 


OF | 8Z | 9T | 99 | Sa] Te | 48] SS | ZB] ITT] To | 09 | FL | TL | 8 | 98 | 2} F9 | EL | HO | GT | LO) TOT] 908)" **moOpsuly oLL 
OF ON eet OG OS aoc eh esa be ot ki Lot cea, Cort onl OR Oot 1G bile tee cle PeR bal PRE d COME a 4 ** BlUrTpres 
SUE er OS ee | LP a ert TL Ist 8 | BA Sarl lo 8p S64 OST SO ft Ta he Pee Sarl iteeatae = ee ATIIS 

TF} 68486" | 69 | Sr | 20 SE | PE | L. | TS) SE 1 9 | SE] Skl  S] 28) EE 94) | OL Por | © 94 OF 100s Si BYVOTTISVE, 
pues ‘vqee ‘erpong 

ey | sri °° | oa} ze] 03} cL) ar] °° |} sti s |g | 41h |S | 86) c3; 41a |S |S | 69) FE] OF Im ng “* S@90UIA 
: -O1g uvyodvey 1eddq 
Se9a Sh Ores (8) 1 Sap 0° 16 LS Ve ee Ae ee OO ZF 89 aa | at Te Ok te i ORME repre, Crees 
or | et | 4z| 09} 90) 7819 |3 |% | 6 | % 1G | OL] OL] °° | 06] 8] 99]9 | 9 | °° | HH] ALI 24a |°* Aueosny, pues viunsry 
6g | 6s} °° | T|2 |/F919 |9 |** 18 | Lt [4 | St] st] s {S38} ss] 4g); 9 |g | T | 88] IL] 83 |seqore eqy pus viITIMy 
O91 Scrce1osig fehl ei 17 16 42.18 | 83] 26/0 $221 TE 18) FFE] 8819 fT ee a “*  BIZQUBA 
og | 0 | 0§ | 09 | 2 | 46] ZL] 4 | OL | ZL} 8 | 6 | 93] SL | IL | #4] SL} 99] SE} OL] 8 | 09 | Zr] se \°° 7; AprequioT 
49 | 9L| T | SP | 0c} 8s] 4E} 9 | SL} est} 9 | 4 || 4 | FL] 64) OE} 99] TL) | 4 | OW} 4 | Sei" we quoulpeld 























"qu90 Jog "sens oynlosq VW *4u00 19g, *‘soimsy oynjosqy 
Sli ol| el] al we] OQ] Ss] w]e] Se] w]e] S| w]e) S|] ee] | ee 
SIEi/S(SlelsislelslsleFlelslsisislelel sl =| és 
> ' 5 ° e s B . ‘* 5 é 
; *SJOLIGEIT 
“qqarT “ye ‘qUSTT “ye “qq SPT “yrVd “qySTT | “yred 








& 
—SsI SII Ot] JO 


‘gouej.10dult ALVpUoOIeS JO SANO[OD InoToo yUvUTMIOpedd S43 YOIA Uy seuNMMLOD, 


‘STaI HHL LO SHNOTOO 
a a nea gS 
rSdoVU NVIIVLI FHL ONOWV GUVAC ANV ‘MIVH ‘SHAA—*XIGNAddV 


302 APPENDIX. 


COLOUR OF THE HATR. 





Number of Communes in 
which the predominant 
colour is— 


Colours of secondary 
importance. 


istric a * (=| . s ™ . 
Districts. ; 4 eldle 4 ‘ E 4 artes : 3 5 
= = a ~_ Mm oo oC o 
Sisifiels@lalslalalislaelaliale 
Absolute figures.| Percent. |Absolute figures.| Percent. 
Piedmont = ..| 85 | 15 | 2 | 527) 67 | 29 |>4 |. Sue Salsa eee ose 
Lombardy ve .1 66/16] 1) 73) 77) 22) 1) 100 74 se eee 
Liguria .. ec PIO bil ee tS terme 2. dela SiG ames 
Venetia. . 441 6] 4] 54] 81/12) 8)4 1| 4] 9] 44] 11] 45 
Emilia & the Marches 32. 1°.8} .. | 40/80} 20 8] 4] 4111 | 28] 36} 36 
Umbria .. of S15: 16 | seer aL eons 8) Bh) el Saas eee 
Tuscany me Od. 9 83 Vise 8} Eh SQ VON ee oe ea eee 
Upper N: eapolitan 
Provinces .. 57 |} 18 | 2|72| 79) 18 | 8 4 1O eet oeiecae ore 
Puglia, Calabria, and 
Basilicata .. ..| 59 | 16 | 2) 77) 16 | 28 | 38) On) ie eS eee ees 
RCiLy eae ote Be | Lal ees L:}. 85) sobs 68 3 9 1 L | dE 082 9 9 
Sardinia ee pO) Gah oe kL eae 2a eee 2 |100 


For the Kingdom ..|353 |128 | 12 |493 | 713} 26 | 23) 52 | 61 | 19 |132 | 39 | 46 | 15 


COLOUR OF THE BEARD. 





Communes in which the 


predominant colour of Colours of secondary 








the beard is— importance. 
5 ad or eae 5 a4 a g ad 
Districts. S| S/H/S/S/8/4]/elelalSlelele 
sa a aI — a 3 oH i 
SiFliG@lel|salel|elelHalealalalale 
Absolute figures.| Percent. |Absolute figures.} Per cent. 
Pa 
Piedmont aA ~-| 2k |12} 2) 88-| 63) Sl | > Gio *Sa awe 8 | 382.62 bee 
Liguria .. oa ar leh] ak sl 14 (1s) 200 ee L | 1} See ROOR boa 
Lombardy os --| 45 120] 2 | 68 | 67 | 29 | 14) 6 | Sy 2aeee penne 
Venetia . 38 | 8 | 38) 49 | 77 |-17 | 6 | 2.) SSeS eee 
Emilia & the Marches 82} 3 85 | 71 Ole 1| 21.2) 65°20 40s ho 
Umbria . 16] 6 BAN TO Aa ar Nee 2°| Sie 3 | 67 | 33 
Tuscany _ weltces th Dall eLalod rl (helene 38) 2) 417 2 Segaeooeeos 
Upper Neapolitan 
Provinces... 44/18] 4] 66] 67 | 27| 6| 4] 4]2 | 10] 40] 40) 20 
Puglia, Calabria, and. 
asilicata .. 65/18} 1) 84|77 | 22) 1| 4 | TUS) eee eee 
Sicily .. Ee --| 18} 17 | 11) 81] 42 | 65 | 8] 6 | 20 ee 
Sardinia A Set Bt oh eh 20 GON) SAO 5 hae ae Lie 100 | 
For the Kingdom ..|318 |119 | 14 |451 | 70 | 26 | 4 | 82 | 29 | 15 | 76 | 42 | 38 | 20 





APPENDIX. 303 


In Italy generally, as in each of its particular divisions, 
the prevailing colour of the hair is brown; then comes 
black, and finally, light hair, which only prevails in 24% per 
cent. of the communes examined. 

Nevertheless, in the countries where the colour of the hair 
varies very much, the fair holds an important place; but gener- 
ally it is the black which comes after the brown, or vice versa. 

Fair only comes second in 15 per cent. of the communes 
examined ; in the others it is the rarest of all. 

The region most abounding in fair hair is Venetia. 
There, in 8 per cent. of cases, fair is a predominant colour, 
and in 45 per cent. it takes the second place. After Venetia 
comes Piedmont, then the Neapolitan provinces and Sicily. 
In Central Italy there is no commune where fair hair is 
predominant, but those where it is abundant are not rare. 

Black hair is very common in Sicily and in Umbria, but 
very rare in Venetia. 





Number of Communes where the 
Hair is generally— 


Regions. 


Thick. | Scanty.| Total. | Thick. | Scanty. 











Absolute figures. Per cent. 


Piedmont + aoe os.| 26 17 43 60 40 


Liguria ... ae oF plea S 3 II 73 27 
Bomibardy .... = pi 40 18 66 73 27 
Venetia .. Prise 13 50 74 26 


Emilia and the Marches sist Se 2 34 96 6 
Latium and Umbria ... Saal le 4 18 78 22 
Tuscany leak 15 26 42 58 
Upper Neapolitan Provinces .. 57 9 66 86 14 
Puglia, Calabria, and Basilicata 74 13 87 85 15 


piciy<.... Si cas Lee 3 30 90 IO 
Sardinia 3 a aly 3 10 70 30 
Kingdom ... nf eel 341 100 | 4II ne 23 





Beside the colour, it is right to indicate the abundance of 


the hair, which is determined accordingly as thick or scanty 
20 


304 APPENDIX. 


hair predominates in each commune. The above table shows 
how the different parts of Italy are divided in this respect. 

Thus in more than three-quarters of 441 communes 
which have furnished data, thick hair is predominant. It is 
only in Tuscany that scanty hair predominates, and in the 
adjoining Emilia there is only, so to say, thick hair. Gener- 
ally hair is thicker in the south than in the north of Italy. 

It seems that the colour of the hair does not largely 
affect its abundance, 

As to the form, hair is essentially distinguished as smooth 
and curly. The latter, according to Priiner-Bey, are ellipti- 
cal in transverse section, while the former are almost circular. 

The following table indicates, region by region, the 
number of the communes where curly hair predominates or 
is at least very frequent in proportion to the smooth hair:— 


FORM OF THE HAIR. 


Number of the Communes where the 
predominant form of the hair is— 











Regions, Smooth) Curly. | Total. |Smooth| Curly, 

Absolute Figures. Per Cent. 
Piedmont oS: i elas I 43 98 332 
Liguria ... see vee conv tao ove 13 | 100 nae 
Lombardy Bee orc ts enn 7 58 88 12 
Venetia .. reo 3 49 94 6 
Emilia and the Marches Wao ts5 2 37 94 6 
Umbria ie “ea elo I 19 95 5 
Tuscany 30 oo 30 | 100 eas 
Upper Neapolitan Provinces .. 61 2 63 97 3 
Puglia, Calabria, and Basilicatal 36 5 gI 95 5 
Sicily — +. as eis bucee I 30 97 3 
Sardinia + Sas de I 9 89 II 


SS | |. |. i Oe = Oe 


Kingdom) “task © seat! 419 23 | 442 95 5 





Curly hair only predominates in five per cent. of the 
communes examined. Lombardy, Venetia, Emilia, and Sar- 
dinia form a group where curly hair is particularly abundant, 


APPENDIX. 305 


Liguria, Piedmont, and Tuscany are in opposite case. It 
seems that there is no relation between the colour and the 
abundance of the hair on one side and its form on the other. 

Finally, we have still to seek for information respecting 
the length of the hair. But many of those consulted 
understood that we wanted to know whether the male 
population was in the habit of wearing the hair long or 
short; others, on the contrary, believed that we meant 
the real length of the women’s hair. In consequence of this 
confusion it has not been possible to collect in a statistical 
table the data relative to this last part of the inquiry. 

Leard.—Nearly all the communes which replied to the 
preceding question also replied to Question 13 on the 
colour, length, and abundance of the beard. 

The colour of the beard does not always agree with 
that of the hair; the intermediate brown is less frequent, 
which augments the proportion of black and of fair. 

Still brown is always in the majority ; but in some cases 
brown hair is associated with a fair beard, and still more 
often with a dark brown beard. 


Number of the Communes where the 
predominant beard is— 


Regions, Thick. |Scanty.| Total. | Thick. |Scanty. 


Absolute Figures. Per Cent. 


Piedmont - Sas 15 55 45 
Liguria ... vie aes eset 9 82 18 
Lombardy oe ie Raat aS 42 
Venetia... of ae sesh, 20 4o 
Emilia and the Marches wists 20 26 
Umbria... Ges ak eS 

Tuscany ae pes sacle 25 

Upper Neapolitan Provinces... 
Puglia, Calabria, and Basilicata 
ey Dass ag 
Sardinia 


Kingdom ... 





306 APPENDIX. 


Generally the thickness of the beard corresponds to that 
of the hair. In the southern provinces thick beards are 
more frequent than in the northern; the difference between 
the two regions is still more accentuated than for the hair. 

This greater development of beard inthe southern provinces 
agrees with the fact that the beard grows more strongly in 
summer than in winter. According to the experiments of 
Professor Moleschott, the increase in length in summer would 
be in the proportion of 122 to roo to that in the winter. 

Tuscany, which is distinguished by the frequency of 
scantiness of hair, shares this character with Piedmont in 
respect to the beard. | 

Another very important character relative to the beard is 
the custom predominating in a people of wearing it long or 
short. The following table shows how much the diverse 
regions differ in this respect :— j 





Communes where the custom prevails 
of wearing the beard— ; 


Regions. 











Long. | Short. | Total.| Long. | Short.’ 

Absolute Figures. Per Cent. 

Piedmont 7 18 25 28 72 
Liguria ... 3 4 7. | “7 
Lombardy 8 36 44 18 82 
Venetia .. 13 29 42 31 69 
Emilia and the Marches 8 18 26 31 69 
Umbria ‘ gs 4 II 15 27 73 
Tuscany 2 16 18 II 89 
Upper Neapolitan Provinces...| 1 . 37 50 26 74 
Puglia, Calabria, and Basilicata 19 40 59 32 68 
Sicily 9 14 23 39 61 
Sardinia 5 5 10 50 50 
Kingdom ... ee | OL | 228 7) eane 29 | 9 


In more than two-thirds of the communes examined the 
custom prevails of shaving or of wearing the beard short. It 
is especially in the southern provinces that there is a taste 


APPENDIX. 307 


for wearing it long. These regions have also been seen to be 
distinguished by the thickness of the beard, while Tuscany, 
however, where scanty beards are the most numerous, is the 
region where the wearing of it short is most prevalent. 

Red Hair.—Professor Topinard considers red-haired 
people to be the residue of a race which has almost 
disappeared, and which had formerly advanced to the 
borders of the Rhine and to England. Dr. Beddoe, on 
the contrary, looks upon red hair not as an_ ethnical 
but as an accidental character. The Ethnographical 
Inquiry has devoted a special question to the frequency 
of red hair in Italy. To collect the results, I have 
deemed it useful to divide the communes into four 
groups. I have put into the first those in which red hair is 
not rare (generally in the proportion of 3 to 8 per cent.) ; 
in the second, those in which it is rare; in the third, those 
in which it is very rare; and finally, in the fourth, those 
where it is never met with at all. 


FREQUENCY OF RED HAIR. 


Communes in which red hair is— 


pert g ie g 
Regions. 3 = sik 5 - bo 
Soe 8s| Sie | sera es 
a/r>i|aizilsiel/ale2 
Absolute figures. Per cent. 
MIRE ore iodine ascs shave sees 6.120} 22-1 oct.) SOs atid 
PLS von dsteatecsiycaden> eo Bf 27a gy Oo 4040 2 
EN cna ind ps sdares vaverers BO OU se 27 ee deeet AT. | eae 4 
Emilia and the Marches......| ... L717 to a 44 | 46 | Io 
Umbria and Liguria........... 3 1B 1-9 15 | 40} 45 
RU sess 2 say nae ece 204 cos fa See lowde Ol 46h 37 44 Es 
Upper Neapolitan Provinces} 5 | 26| 31] 5] 7] 39] 46] 7 
Puglia and Calabria .......... 4901723562001 5. |-21°). 37°19" 9 
Sicily and Sardinia............ Gelasecwiate.. ft Rlt 57 132 


SS | | | | | | ——_— 


SPAIN Si scdesti ss au} tree's 45 |192 1196 | 35 | oO! 41 | 42] 74 





308 APPENDIX. 


In all parts of the kingdom red hair is found, but in very 
small quantities. Of all the communes examined, there is 
only one, that of Santa Agata, in Puglia, where it has been said 
that red hair is the predominant colour in the population. 
Countries very remote from each other, as Lombardy, Emilia, 
Tuscany, and Puglia, present the greatest number; while 
other countries, still more distant from each other, as Pied- 
mont, Umbria, and Sicily, are most scantily supplied. It 
cannot be said that the abundance of red hair is related to 
that of fair, since, as we have seen, Lombardy, Emilia, and 
Tuscany are precisely the regions poorest in fair hair ; while 
Piedmont and Venetia are the richest. 

Baldness.—As far as this question is concerned, doctors 
take account of three special conditions— 

1st. Was baldness frequent in the prime of age? 

2nd. Was it frequent only at a tolerably advanced age— 
say, after fifty years P . 

3rd. Did the hair remain tolerably abundant into a ripe 
age—say, nearly up to sixty ? 

The different regions divided in these three categories 
have given the following results— 





Number of Communes where Baldness is— 


2 \ ey =: |) eee 
BS | 22 |8a.| a | 8 | 28 | 8a. 
Regions. Ee 8 8 o & S Se g 8 o5 & 
ES | 3 gq% | a ES | 53 L< 
EB |e EB lag 
Absolute Figures, Per Cent. 
Piedmont fai atO 27 I 41 36 62 
Lombardy  ...]| 25 38 7 70 36 54 
Venetia feed 32 5 54 31 60 
Emilia and the 
Marches ol EEO 30 2 42 24 71 
Tuscany and 
Liguria rer heel 24 I 43 43 55 
Umbria... ss 6 14 a 20 30 70 


Upper Neapoli- 

tan Provinces | 17 45 4 66 26 68 
Puglia, Calabria, 

and Basilicata | 26 66 3 95 27 70 


—_—<—_—<— | — | |_| SS 





ca! 


APPENDIX, 309 


The population of Tuscany, which was already in the 
first rank for scanty hair, is also that in which the hair falls 
off soonest and most readily. 

Disregarding Tuscany, the falling off of the hair is less 
precocious in the centre and southern provinces than in 
Northern Italy. 


EXEMPTED FROM MILITARY SERVICE. 





For Baldness, Lror Diseases of the Scalp. 














faa Absolute Annual Absolute- Annual 

figures, average on figures, average on 

1874-77. 10,000 visits.| 1874-77. |10,000 visits. 
Piedmont... ae 109 IO 494 23 
Liguria al es 22 7 93 15 
Lombardy. ... mate 404 35 1940 73 
Venetia - ee 121 13 563 40 
Emilia a 8 408 25 
Meta... (tw. 44 19 171 36 
The Marches ne 34 IO 155 21 
muscany. _... pen| )-£57 19 473 29 
Rome oie a 45 15 259 42 
Abruzzi ee we 211 40 962 92 
Campania ... et 088330 29 1715 96 
Puglia J ane 194 33 1320 112 
Calabria, Basilicata 189 31 1836 87 
Sicily vis Baie eZOS 17 1079 46 
Sardinia Pas me 47 19 226 46 
Kingdom elerees 20 10,894 52 





The aspect changes when we pass into the more specially 
pathological domain. Precocious baldness, in so much as 
it is a cause of exemption from military service, is met 
with in all parts of Italy, as may be seen from the preceding 
table. 

I should not be able to explain why the regions in which 
hair is the scantiest and where it is retained the longest, are 


1 Alopecia, scabs and permanent organic lesions of the scalp. 


310 APPENDIX. 


also those in which the alterations of the scalp are most 
frequent. 

In Italy, of tooo rejected conscripts, eight are on 
account of precocious baldness; while in the Neapolitan 
provinces the cases of exemption for this cause rise to 51 
out of 1000. 


PLATE I. 311 
ANCIENT FIGURES OF JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY. 













~ 


KO} 
( 


2S 


<_ 
7. 


A 


On (le 
VU 


a, b, c, Figures from Cardano. d, e, Figures from Finella. f,g, Man 
compared to the Ape.—Dalla Porta. 


PLATE, Ty 
MORPHOLOGICAL TREE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 





PLATE III. 313 
ASTHETIC TREE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 





314 , PLATEAU 
INTELLECTUAL TREE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 





PLATE V. | 318 


ee Oa 
1 ge A \\ WA x 
vo 6 ) 
ama ek 











a, b, c—Various forms of the Eyes. d,e, f, g, h, i—Various forms of the 
Nose. &, l, m—Various forms of the Mouth. 


316 PLATE VI.—ETHNIC 


ra) 


sez lf 
3 ey 
7 Mae”, ff 
BY cen yo slays \ 
Biase 
g 
ty 


v 


as 

in his 

NW R: Kos i= 7 

MING: 4% 

nt W000" pons 

\ = SET . 
EE 


\\ 














6 ae Sar , 
a. ae 
eS : 


WES 
VES 


‘ 
+ 


a, Chimpanzee. 0, Arab.  ¢, Hottentot. 


TYPES, 








d, Papuan. 


e, Australian. 


——s” 


PLATE VII.—ETHNIC 


a, Negro from Central Africa. b, Mongol. 
é, Javanese. 


TYPES, 


c, Negrito. 





d, Pampa. 


318 PLATE VIII.—ANTHROPOMORPHIC IDOLS. 


AF S 


= 


SS FY 
LAL 


= Zz 

=~ £= 

SE = 
= 


Samoans Se 


EES 
CL 


oe 
es 


o> 
ate a ee 
oeses: 


Pa 
woe. 
ee 


Aas 
oes 
Fog 
oma ws 


JEPx 
oi 


\ 

ey Ww yy 

AF OM yy 
At 





a, Peruvian Idol. b, Maori Idol. c, Papuan Idol. 


INDEX. 


Absent look, 206 

Abyssinians, 112, 233 

Achilles, 215, 216 

Adamantius, 3, 284, 285 

Admiralty Islands, 236 

Admiration, 150, e¢ seq. 

Adolescence, 118, 127, 128 

Africa, 31, 53 

Age, distinctions of, 55, 70, 118, 
127, 221 

Aimara, 232 

Akkas of Miani, 47, 265 

Alberti, Leo Battista, 43 

Albertus Magnus, 105, 184 

Albinos, 41 

Alcibiades, 4 

Alphabet of expression, 20, 79, e¢ 
SCq. 

Ambition, 190 

Amboyna, 234 

Ambrose, St., 5 

America, 31, 65, 66 

American Army, 61 

American Indians, 56 

Anatomy, 27, 87 

Anatomical characters of intelli- 
gent and stupid faces, 288 

Anchises, 9 

Andronicus, 184 

Anecdotes, 25, 41, 76, 84, 164, 
171, 279 

Angle of nose with forehead, 47 

Anglo-Saxon race, 295 

Annamites, 235 

Anterior lobes of brain, 36, 222 

Anthropological instructions, 30, 


40 
Anthropological Society of Paris, 
39, 31, 49, 55 


Antithesis, principle of, 89 

Apathy, 43, 232 

Apelius, 43 

Apes, 18, 87, 108 

Apocalypse, 15 

Apollo of Belvedere, 73 

Apoplectic constitution, 270 

Arabs, 48, 243 

Aretzeus, 273 

Argentine Republic, 77, 81, 179, 
244 

Ariosto, 240 

Aristocratic expression, 188 

Aristophanes, 5 

Aristotle, 45, 34, 55, 104, 160, 
196, 285 

Arm, the, 257 

Arrogance, 191 

Aryans, 30, 31, 38, 39, 53, 65 

Asia, 31 

Asiatics, 236 

Association of useful attitudes, 89 

Astrological physiognomy, 6, 7 

Astrology, 7 

Astronomy, judicial, 6, 7, 8, 15 

Asthma, 48 

Astuteness, 52, 147 

Atavism, 45, 93, 153, 169, 204 

Attention, 201, 205 

Augustine, St., 6 

Australians, 29, 31, 48, 55, 65, 73, 
FAs Pie, (116; 130, 2027232: 
233, 295 


. Automatic gestures, 293, 296 


21 


Automatic imitation, 84, 93 
Avarice, 119 

Averroes, 6 

Aversion, 166 

Avicenna, 6, 284 


320 INDEX. 


Babylonians, 237 

Bacchus, 118 

Bacchic expression, 117 

Bad faces, 278 

Bain, 20 ° 

Baldness, 308 

Balzac, 107, 189, 232, 271 

Bankers, 244 

Bavaria, 58 

Beard, the, 63, 232 

Beauty, 72 e¢ seq. 

Beddoe, Dr., 57, 61, 307 

Bell, Charles, 19, 217 

Benevolence, 129, 134 éf seg., 142, 
149 

Bergen, 231 

Bernard, Dr., 260 

Bertillon, Prof., 59 

Bizzozero, 68 

Black hair, 56, 303 

Blonde hair, 56, 303 

Blondo, 13 

Blushing, 19, 196 

Boccaccio, 105 

Boggio, 84 

Boileau, 43 

Borromeo, Charles, 156 

Boschimans, 63, 232 

Bretons, 57 

Brinvilliers, 164 

Broca, 36, 40 

Broglio, Dr., 220 

Brow, 13 

Buda-Pesth, 60 

Buffon, 18, 43 

Burgess, Dr., 19 

Buriates, 39, 53 


Cachique of Paraguay, 191 
Cathise 740112, 202233 
Calvin, 156 

Camper, 18, 29 
Campolongns, Emilus, 293 
Cannibals, 171 

Canova, 214 

Cardano, 5, 6, 286 
Cardona, Filippo, 22, 34 
Carducci, 290 

Carnivora, 171, 178 
Carus, 46 ; 
Carpenters, 243 

Caresses, 139 


Casanova, 68 

Cato, 93 

Cavour, 9, 297 

Cebus Azarze, 107 

Cebus hypoleucus, 108 

Celsus, 6 

Central Queensland, 55 

Centrifugal expression, 79, III, 
114, 117, 1233-1390, 505c noes 
175, 206, 242 

Centripetal expression, 114, 128, 
130, 194, 206, 242 

Cerebral hemispheres, 113, 125, 
221 

Character, 225 

Charnock, 58 

Chaussier, 225 

Cheeks, 52 

Chiaramonti, Scipione, 13 

Chili, 179 

Chin, 31 ef. seg., 120, 202, 288, 
290 

Chinese, 30, 55, 232, 333 

Childhood, characteristics of, 34, 
113, 118, 126,.127 i oeengo 

Chimpanzees, 108, 172 

Chiriguanis, 232 

Chodowiecki’s table, 246 

Choleric man, the, 160 

Christ, 157 


- Cicero, 36, 104, 107 


Cimbric race, 60 

Circassians, 77 

Ci culation, 173, 217 

Clarke, 43 

Classification of expression, 96 
et Seq. 

Clazomenes, 105 

Clockmakers, 244 

Coldness, 52. 

Colliqueo, King of Araucania, 191 

Colour of the eye, 39, 56, 301 

Colour of the hair, 55, 303 

Colour of the skin, 30 e¢ seg. 

Comparative physiognomy, 18, 20 

Compassion, 144 . 

Compound expressions, 99, 121, 
133, 153, 167, 189, 246 e¢ seg. 

Concealment of emotion, 250 

Contempt, 176, 236 

Contractions, 258 

Conurus monachus, 92 


INDEX. 321 


Convulsions, 124, 175, 252 


_Coolies of Madras, 298 
- Coquetry, 189 


Cornea, 38, 41 

Corneille, 69 

Cortes, Jerome, 6, 107 

Courage, 148 

Coyness, 235 

Cranium, 281 

Crassus, 106 

Crawford, Dr., 32 

Creative work, 209 

Cries, 125, 175 

Criteria of emotion, etc, 254 e¢ 
$€9., 275, 286 

Cruelty, 159 e¢ seg., 176 

Curly hair, 304 


Dancers, 244 

Danes, 57 

Dante, 183 

Darwin, I9, 20, 21, 88, 92, 93, 
108, 112, 115, 126, 138, 139, 
Meeo0, 217,231, 232, 236 

Darwinian laws of expression, 89 
ef Seq. 

Death, 216 

Defensive expression, 92 

De la Chambre, 7, 8, 172 

Democritus, 105 

Desire, 217 

Devotion, 150 é7 seg. 

Dignity, 188 

Dimples, 52 

Diminutives, 137 

Disdain, 130, 172, 188 

Disease, 100, 196, 265, 267 

Disgust, 166, 170, 176, 204, 234 

Disquietude, 217, 218 

Dissimulation, 246, 279 

Disturbing elements of expression, 
245 et seq. 

Distrust, 194 

Doctors, 243 

Dom Pernetty, 279 

Domitian, 5 

Donders, 206 

Don Juan, 118 

Dreaming, 202 

Dress, 298 

Drunken man, Lebrun’s picture of, 
219 


Druggists, 243 
Duchenne, 19, 108 


Ears, 53, 288 
Easterns, 77, 142-232 
Ecclesiasticus, 36 
Education, 227 
Effrontery, 180 
Egoism, 193 
Emilia, 304 
Empress Eugénie, 39 
Energy, 42, 147 
Energy of expression, measure of 
its intensity, 83 
Engel, 19 
English, 52, 58, 59, 61, 
232, 239, 241, 242, 295 
Envy, 176 
Epicureanism, 117 
Ericomes, 63 
Esquimaux, 39, 46, 53, 57, 139 
Ethnical types, 75 
Ethnological inquiry, 307 
99 tree, 73, 74 
Europe, 31-45, 58 
Europeans, 30, 56, 61, 
236 
Euterian Senorita, 298 
Evolution, 19, 87 
Expressive centres, 289 
Excitability, 225 
Excess, I00 
Expectation, 217, 218 
Expressionless faces, 254 ef seq. 
Expression of hatred, 164 
om ») intellect, 98 
% »» passion, 98 
»» Sense, 97 
Eye, "38 et seg., 167, 169, 198, 202, 
203, 210, 249, 250, 279, 288 
Eyebrows, 38, 42, 202 
Eyelashes, 38, 42, 44 
Eyelids, 44 


77, 85; 


74, 232, 


Face, the, 23 e¢ seq. 


9, 99  itsdistinctive characters, 


27 

Face, the, its anatomical and ex- 
pressive elements, 28 

Facial angle, 18 

False criteria, 275 

Fear, 131, 168, 175, 176 


322 


Feeling, 48 

Fénélon, 14 

Feminine characteristics, 15, 34, 
42,352,570, .126 

Ferocity, 39, 42, 169, 178, 232 

Fey, 77 

Firmness of character, 37, 51, 52 

Firms, 56 

Fieni, 273 

Finella, 13 

Forehead, 
288 

Florence, Institution at, 262 

Flushing, 126 

France, 46, 60 

Francesca, 143, 260 

Frederick the Great, 137 

French, 142, 236, 238, 239, 241, 
242, 295 

Friendship, 145 

Friendly Islands, 234 

Frog-powder, 6 

Fuegians, 139, 232 

Fueslin, 239 

Functional sympathy, 94 

Furtive look, 278 


33 ef -seg.,- 162, 202, 


Galen, 6, 8 
Gaurico, 163 
Geissler, Dr., 59 
Genius, 216, 289 
Gentleness, 37, 232 
Georgians, 77 
Germans, 56, 61, 237, 241, 242, 
295 
Gesture, 81, 194, 207, 219, 292, 
227 
Gesture of orators, 297 
» 9 walking, 296 
», workers, 298 
Ghiradelli, TO}. 12," (305104009 fa, 
162, 182, 184, 196, 199, 236 
Giglioli, Professor, 73 
Gill, Wyatt, 192, 233, 234 
Gluttony, 117 
Good humour, 116 
»» health, 116 
Good man, the, 145 
Goethe, 84, 289 
Good faces, 277, 281 
Gratiolet, 19, 169, 206, 217 
Grattarola, 12, 163 


INDEX. 


Greeks, 48, 236 
Greeco-Latin race, 295 
Greek sculptors, 213 
Greenlanders, 57, 116, 233 
Greetings, 234 

Gregory the Great, St., 5 
Gregory of Nanzianzen, 5 
Gregory of Nyssus, 5 
Groans, 125, 174 
Grotesque expression, 232 
Guadagnoli, 66 

Guaranis, 179, 202, 232 


Hair, 55, 63, 64, 140, 301 
Hali, Abenragel, 67 
Hand, 140, 153, 257 
Hangdog expression, 281 
Hanover, 17 

Harshness, 42 

Hatred, 159 ef seg., 168, 236 
Haughtiness, 188 
Health, 262, 265 

Head, 7, 286, 287 
Hearing, 118, 129 
Heliogabalus, 105 
Hérincourt, Dr., 292 
Herder, 16, 49 
Heredity, 300 

Hindus, I1I, 202, 333 
Hippocrates, 6, 269, 273 
Homer, 4, 184 
Hoffmann, 273 

Honesty, 147 

Honour, 188 

Horror, 167, 168, 176 
Horsemen, 244 
Hoarseness, 175 
Horace, 209 

Hottentots, 63, 232 
Human morphology, 29 
Humbert, K., 188, 283 
Hungarians, 239, 243 
Hungarian students, 60 
Hunger, 126 

Hygiene, Elements of, 225 


Illyrians, 239 

Imagination, 291 

Imitative sympathy, 136, 94 
Impatience, 217, 218 
Immobility, 254, 259 

India, 31, 172 


INDEX. 323 


Individual traits, 219, ¢¢ seg. 

Inductive errors, 276 

Infancy, 118, 221 

Ingegnari, Giovanni, 12, 13, 36, 
163, 181, 196, 286 

Innuus ecaudatus, 108 

Intellect, 48, 98, 100, I19, 128, 
131, 203, 262, 286 

Intellectual work, 70 

Intelligence, 232 

International Congress of Demo- 
graphy, 59 

Iris, colours of, 301 

Irish, 61 

Isabella of Bavaria, 175 

Isaiah, 36 

Isidoro, 9 

Isocrates, 105 

Italians, 45, 57, 60, 61, 77, 85, 
142, 231, 236, 239, 241, 295, 
301 


Jamblichus, 3 

Japanese, 30, 56, 139, 232 
Jaws, 28 

Jealousy, 168, 175 
Jerome, St., 5 

Jews, 57, 58, 61, 238, 242 
Jesuits, 156 

John, St., 15, 156 
Joining the hands, 153 
Joy, 117, 233 

Julius Ceesar, 137 

Jupiter, 7, 237 

Justice, 36 

Juvenal, 5, 105, 183 


Kalmucks, 66 

Kissing, 82, 139, 142, 152, 234 
Kindliness, 147 

Klopstock’s Messiah, 14 
Kdlliket, 69 

Korosi, F., 60 

Krause, 69 

Kubisse, 164 


Labour, 208 

Labillardiére, 232, 234, 235 
Lactantio, 9 

Lange, C., 68 

Langes, M., 164 

Laocorn, the, 80 


Lapps, 30, 40, 56, 57, 65, 66, 141, 
179, 232, 295 

Latin race, 295 

Laughter, 104, 111, 148, 170, 187, 
232 

Lavater, 13, 14, 16, 17, 22, 25, 37; 
42, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, 52, 153, 
147, 148, 155, 163, 202, 210, 
238, 239, 245, 272-274, 279 

Lebrun, 17, 151, 167, 200, 218 

Le Feévre, 43 

Leichert, 116 

Leiotrichous races, 63 

Lemoine, 19 

Lentz, 239 

Leoninius, 273 

Lepelletier, 22, 108, 146, 149, 156 

Libertinism, 70, 116 

Lichtenberg’s Satire, 17 

Ligurians, 57, 305 

Lips, 142, 198, 202 

Lombardy, 61, 227, 304 

Lombardini, 290 

Long hair, 305 

Long beards, 306 

Lophocomes, 63 

Love, 118, 119, 134 e¢ seg., 256, 


277 
Loyala, 156 
Lucan, 5 
Lucian, 5 


Madeira, Day at, 233 

Magnanimity, 35 

Malays, 31, 38, 56, 82, 112, 139, 
202,232 

Malfatti, Dr., 243 

Maltese, 57 

Mancilla, 76 

Mangaia, 235 

Manual labour, 120 

Maoris, 66, 75, 139, 179, 232 

Marami, Adelaide Pandiani, 214 

Mars, 7, 237 

Masculine characteristics, 34, 42 

Martial, 3, 35 

Masks, 75 

Mastriani, 21 

Matacos, 32 

Maternal love, 144 

Maturity, 118, 127, 128 

Mayr, Dr., 58 


324 


Mazzini, 287 

Mediocrity, 203 

Meditation, 291 

Mercier, 16 

Mercury, 7 

Metoposcopy, 7, 13 

Mexico, 172 

Milanese, 81, 241 

Mildness, 147 

Minghetti, 84, 297 

Mirabeau, 75; his mask, 16 

Mittos, 235 

Modesty, 43, 247 

Mobility of features, 231 

Mocovis, 77 

Modena, Gustavo, 300 

Moles, 67 

Moleschott, Professor, 306 

Monbuttoos, 236 

Mongols, 30, 38, 45, 48, 52, 56, 65 

Montaigne, 159 

Montecucoli, Carlo, 160 

Moon, 7 

Moral man, the, 145 

Moral suffering, 126 

Moral worth, 262 

Morgante Maggiore, 52 

Moribund face, 269 

Mouth, 15, 48, 169, 176, 216, 289, 
290 

Muscles, 87, 92, 124, 125, 187, 
221, 222, 249 

Muscular contractions, 125 

Muscular sympathy, 94 

Musicians, 116 


Naples, 80, 303 

Narbonese Gaul, 237 

Neapolitans, 241 

Negroes, 18, 29. 39, 56, 57, 63, 
ee 112, 179, 213, 232, 233, 


29 
Negritoes, 31, 63, 179, 232 
Neighing, 235 
Nestor, 4 
Nerve centres, 89, 94 
Nerva, 175 
New Caledonian girls, 235 
Newton, 43 
New Zealand, king of, 233 
Niccolini, 287 


INDEX. 


Niquetius, 5, 8, 10, 35, 37, 106, 
114, 161, 182, 196, 286 

Niobe, 86 

Normans, 57 

North Americans, 45, I12, 179, 
236 

Nose, 12, 44, 139, 162, 169, 202 

Notaries, 244 

Nouveau Manuel du Physiogno- 
miste et du phrénologiste, 22 


Obstinacy, 51 

Old age, 118, 127, 128, 222 
Omnibus, indifferent faces in, 254 
Onanistic physiognomy, 269 
Opinions on physiognomies, 263 
Orientals, 295 

Onistitis, 109 

Oxenstiern, 43 


Pain, 92,123, 123) 250 

Pains of the senses, 128 

Painter, the, 268 

Pallor, 126, 175 

Pampas, the, 66, 76, 142, 179, 
231, 232 

Paolo, 143-266 

Papuans, 29, 31, 34, 48, 75, 77; 
139, 179, 234 

Paralysis, 123, 124 

Passions, 98, 99 

Passionateness, 34, 42, I oo et seq. 

Patagonians, 232 

Pathognomy, Essay on, 22 

Pathological conditions, 48 

Patti, 119 

Permanent expressions, 100, 132, 
178, 187, 195, 202, 277 

Persians, 66 

Persistence of expression, 256 

Perspicacity, 52 

Peruvians, 75 

Peter Damien, St., 5 

Petherick, 115 

Petronius, 5 

Peruzzi, 290 

Pfaff, 57, 63 

Photographs, 263, 264 

Phrenologists, 177 

Phrenology, Dictionary of, 22 

Phthisical constitution, 270 

Physical expression, 80 


INDEX. 


Physical suffering, 126 
Physiology of love, 139 


” pain, 19, 171, 175, 
194, 233, 347, 267 
hatred, 159 


93 
-Physiognomical Bible, the, 15, 202 
Physiognomy, Origin of, 1 e¢ seq. 
5 Dictionary Of; 22 
Essay on, 22 

Physiognomy of the sick, 268 

Physionomiste des dames, 22 

Piderit, 20, 111 

Piedmont, 60, 300, 305 

Plato, 4, 5, 75 

Plautus, 36 

Pleasure, 104 ef seg., 255, 298 

Pliny, 6, 36, 105, 182 

Plutarch, 4, 5, 9, 105 

Poetic labour, 209 

Polemon, 160, 180, 184, 285 

Polli, Povi, 22, 268 

Polynesians, 31, 39, 45, 172, 192, 
234 

Polynesian idol, 172 

Pemeeranoes.4, 5, 7, 8, 14, 21, 
34, 45, 67, 149, 163, 180, 198, 
284, 285 

Portugal, 237 

Portuguese, 61, 241 

_ Poverty of expression, 221 

Pouchet, 69 

Pride, 117, 180 e¢ seg. 

Priests, 248 

Probity, 147 

Profession, effect on expression, 
IOI, 242 

Profundity of thought, 17, 43 

Pruner-Bey, 63, 304 

Prognathous type, 29, 50 

Puglia, 237, 308 

Pulci, 52 

Pythagoras, 105 

Pythagoreans, 3 


Quakers, 65 
Quarrelsomeness, 35 
Quelmalz, Samuel, 273, 
Quichua, 232 


Rabener, 298 
Racial Characters, 56, 60, 76 eé 
$seg., 81, 85, 229 


i 


325 


Racial expression, 230 e¢ seg. 

Racial prejudice, 265 

Racine, 69 

Rage, 168, 173, 175, 218, 236, 
252, 250 

Ram, the, 237 

Raphael, 17, 137, 211 

Rapture, 151 

Rarotonga, 234 

Raseri, 61 

Rasi, 35 

Rasori, 19 

Red hair, 56, 62, 301 

Refinement of expression, 228 

Reflection, 205 

Reflectiveness, 37 

Religious expression, 155 

Remembrance, 207 

Repetition, 223 

Repose, 215, 216 

Repulsion, 105 

Respiration, 125, 174 

Reaction, 123 

Retz, Cardinal, 211 

Riccardi, Paolo, 200 

Ridicule, 171 

Romagnols, 241 

Romans, 236, 241 

Roret, Encyclopédie, 22 

Rosemare, 6 

Rossi, Marquis Errico, 11 

Roujon, 63 

Roumanians, 46, 294 

Rubeis, De, 17, 26 

Rubbing noses, 82, 139, 234, 235 

Russians, 66, 242 


Sadness, 39 

Sagacity, 34 

Sagitarius, 237 

Sailors, 244 

St. John, 156 

St. Hilaire, Is. Geoffroy de, 30 
St. Paul, 156 

St. Vincent, Bory de, 63 
Sanelli, Pompeo, 14 

Santa Fe, Governor of, 220 
Sardinia, 304 

Sardinians, 57 

Sardonic smile, 127, 170 
Satisfaction, 235 

Saturn, 78 


326 


Saxony, 59 

Scandinavians, 61, 66, 230, 242, 
295 

Scotch, 61 

Scotch Highlanders, 57 

Scott, Michael, 165, 184 

Schroder, 273 

Scrupulousness, 51 

Sculptor, the, 208 

Schweinfurth, 235 

Scythia, 230 

Self-abasement, 154 

Self-esteem, 130, 176, 184, 191, 193 

Semites, 30, 31, 38, 39, 62, 65 

Semper, Prof., 32 

Section of the hair, 63, 304 

Seneca, 5, 105, 161, 184 

Sense, 34, 98, 99 

Sensitiveness, 42, 225 

Sensuality, 38, 50 

Seume, 159 

Severity, 147 

Sex distinctions, 34, 42, 55, 66, 
79, 77, 113, 127, 154, 224 

Sexual desires, 126, 235 
»,  voluptuousness, 116 
39 love, 144 

Siberia, 43 

Sicilians, 237 

Sicily, 302 

Sicler, Adrian, 14 

Sighing, 124 

Sight, 119, 128 

Silenus, 118 

Similarity of expression for emo- 
tions of different origin, 119, 
128 e¢ seq. 

Simon, O., 68 

Simulated expression, 247 

Shaking hands, 140, 234 

Slaves, 56, 61, 239, 241, 242, 294 

Sleep, 216 

Smell, 119, 120 

Smile, 110, 170, 203, 224 

Snails, 139 

Socrates, 4, 289 - 

Soldiers, 243 

Somalis, 139 

Sommier, 40, 53, 56 

Sorbonne, 19 

South American Indians, 112, 179, 


233 


INDEX. 


Spaniards, 39, 61, 77, 113, 237; 
241,.242 

Speech, labour of, 208 

Spencer, Herbert, 20 

Sphinx, microglissa, 92 

Spontini, Ciro, 13 

Stael, Madame de, 4 

Stahl, 273 

Stature, 226 

Stich, the, 300 

Stimulants, 232 

Strabo, 5 

Strength of character, 43 

Stricker, 69 

Stupidity, 34, 37, 232, 288, 289 

Subjective errors, 275 

Sulla, 175 

Sun, the, 7, 236 

Superciliary arches, 34 

Surprise, 234 

Suspicion, 194 

Sympathetic phenomena, 85, 90; 
ef S€q., 115, 116, 136, 204, 257 

Syncope, 259 

Synoptical tables, 109, 121, 138, 
165, 185, 201 

Syrians, 236 

Swiss, 238 


Tacitus, 5, 164 
Tahiti, 234 
Tahitians, 139 
Tartuffism, 243 
Taste, 119, 120 
Tears, 186 
Teeth, 53, 169 
Tehuelches, 66 
Telemachus, 4 
Temperament, 225 
Terence, 36 
Teresa, St., 49 
Terror, 126, 167 
Tertullian, 5 
Thiebaut, 47, 265 
Thick beards, 305 
Thirst, 126 
Thomas, St., 5 
Thore, 22, 157 
Thorwaldsen, 214 
Thought, 131, 200 ef seg. 


| Thracia, 236 


Threatening expression, 172 


INDEX. 527 


Tics, 29 

Timidity, 196 

Tiné, Queen, 234 

Tobas, 32, 179, 232 

Todas, 66 

Tommaseo, 48, 49, 52 

Tongue, 144, 172 

Topinard, 18, 47, 57, 60, 63, 307 

Touch, 120 

Tourmex, 69 

Transalpine Gaul, 236, 237 

Transformation of psychic forces, 
173, 252 

Trembling, 92, 175 

Tungoos, 73, 77 

Tuscans, 237, 241, 340, 305, 306, 


399 | 
Turanians, 30 
Turenne, 43 


Ugliness, 275 
Ulotrichous races, 63 
Ulysses, 4 

United States, 292 


Valentinian, 175 
Van Dych, 211 
Vanity, 165, 189 
Vaso-motor phenomena, 126, 257 
Veneration, 150, ef seq. 
Venitia, 61, 303, 304 
Venus, 7 
Venus of Milo, 53, 73, 214 
Sou es Niedici, 214 
Virgil, 9 
Verdicts, zesthetic, 29, 262. 265 
», ethnological, 29, 262 
»» intellectual, 29, 262, 264, 
283, et seq. 


Verdicts, moral, 29, 262, 264, 274 
», physiological, 29, 226, 
26 


Victor Emmanuel, 188 
Viennesé, 57 

Vigorie, 43 

Villari, Pasquale, 107 
Vitruvius, 29 

Vogt, 107, 232 

Volepuk, 292 

Voltaire, 75 
Voluptuousness, 48, 68, 119 
Voluntary gestures, 294 


Wallachians, 239 
Walloons, 57 

War of Secession, 61 
Weakness of character, 52 
Weariness, 126 
Wedgewood, Hensleigh, 153 
Weeping, 126 

Wenceslas, 175 

Wicked fool, the, 160 
Woman, 15, 34, 70, 126 
Wrinkles, 68, 276 

Writer of Darmstadt, 239 


Xenophon, 5 
Ximines, 156 


Yawning, 125 
Wouth. 1867125, 222 


Zeno, 3 

Zimmermann and Lavater, 16 
Zinzendorf, 156 

Zoroaster, 9, 105 

Zurich, 15, 17 


Printed by WALTER Scott, Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 





+4 








Crown 8vo, Cloth. Price $1.25 per Volume. 
Mekinle 


CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES. 


EDITED BY HAVELOCK ELLIS. 


Ltlustrated Volumes, containing between 300 and 400 pp. 


HE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES will bring within 
general reach of the English-speaking public the best that is 
known and thought in all departments of modern scientific research. 
The influence of the scientific spirit.is now rapidly spreading in every 
field of human activity. Social progress, it is felt, must be guided and 
accompanied by accurate knowledge,—knowledge which is, in many 
departments, not yet open tothe English reader. Inthe Contemporary 
Science Series all the questions of modern life—the various social and 
politico-economical problems of to-day, the most recent researches in 
the knowledge of man, the past and present experiences of the race, 
and the nature of its environment—will be frankly investigated and 
clearly presented. 


The first Volumes of the Series are :—- 
THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof. Patrick GEDDES 


and J. ARTHUR THOMSON. With go Illustrations, and about 300 
pages. [ Ready. 
‘* A work which, for range and grace, mastery of material, originality, and 
incisiveness of style and treatment, is not readily to be matched in the long 
list of books designed more or less to popularise science. . . . The series will 
be, if it goes on as it has begun, one of the most valuable now current.” — 
Scottish Leader. 
‘*The book is the opening volume ofa new Scientific Series, and the 
publishers are to be congratulated on starting with such a model of scientific 
exposition.” — Scotsman. 


ELECTRICITY IN MODERN LIFE. By G. W. DE TUNZEL- 
MANN. With 88 Illustrations, [Ready. 


Among the contents of this volume are:—What we know about Electricity 
—What we know about Magnetism—Magnets and Conductors traversed by 
Electric Currents—Sources of Electricity—Magneto and Dynamo Electric 


2 


Machines—-Overland and Submarine Telegraphs—The Telephone—Distribu- 
tion and Storage of Electrical Energy—Electric Lighting—Electro Metallurgy 
—Electricity in Warfare—Medical Electricity, etc. This volume will be of 
interest not only to the specialist engaged in different applications of Elec- 
tricity, but to all who care to know something of the theory and application of 
the force which is creating so many transformations in the modern world. 
While being both copious and explicit in detail, the subject is treated in such 
a way as to appeal to the general reader. 


THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. By Dr. Isaac TAyior: 


With numerous Illustrations, [Ready. 


The last ten years have seen a revolution in the opinion of scholars as to the 
region in which the Aryan race originated, and theories which not long ago 
were universally accepted as the well-established conclusions of science now 
hardly find a defender. The theory of migration from Asia has been dis- 
placed by a new theory of origin in Northern Europe. In Germany several 
works have been devoted to the subject, but this is the first English work 
which has yet appeared embodying the results recently arrived at by philo- 
logists, archzeologists, and anthropologists. This volume affords a fresh and 
highly interesting account of the present state of speculation on a highly 
interesting subject. 


PHYSIOGNOMY AND EXPRESSION. (Illustrated.) By 
P, MANTEGAZZA. [Ready. 


This work, by Professor Mantegazza, a brilliant and versatile author, and 
the leading Italian anthropologist, has already being translated into several 
European languages. Professor Mantegazza, whose name is well known to 
readers of Darwin, has co-operated in the present English edition of his work 
by writing a new chapter specially for it. This volume will be among the 
most popular and interesting of the present series. 


EVOLUTION AND DISEASE. (130 Illustrations.) By J. 


BLAND SUTTON. [ Ready. 


THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN. By G. L. 


GOMME. Numerous IIlustrations. 


Other volumes to follow at short intervals, including ‘‘ Bacteria and their 
Products,” ‘‘ The Evolution of Marriage,” ‘‘ The Development of Electro- 
Magnetic Theory,” ‘‘ The Science of Fairy Tales,” ‘‘ Capital and Interest,” 
‘* Sanity and Insanity,” ‘‘ Manual Training,” ‘‘ Industrial Development,” 
** The Criminal,” etc. 


The following Writers, among others, are preparing volumes for 
this Series :— 


Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald, Prof. J. Geikie, E. C. K. Gonner, Prof. J. Jastrow 
(Wisconsin), E. Sidney Hartland, Prof. C. H. Herford, Dr. C. Mercier, 
Sidney Webb, Dr. Sims Woodhead, Dr. C. M. Woodward (St. Louis, 
Mo,), etc. 


New York: SCRIBNER & WELFORD. 


fee FROSE DRAMAS. 


EDITED BY WILLIAM ARCHER. 


Crown 8vo, CLOTH, EACH $1.25. 


The Norwegian dramatist, HENRIK IBSEN, is at this moment 
one of the most widely-discussed, if not the best known, of 
European writers. His writings have given rise in Germany (to 
say nothing of the Scandinavian kingdoms) to a whole literature 
of books, pamphlets, and reviews; while France possesses 
translations of his most noted dramas. His name has been 
made famous throughout the English-speaking world by the pro- 
duction of 4 Doll’s House in London, New York, Boston, and 
Melbourne. In each of these cities it excited an almost unpre- 
cedented storm of controversy. Hitherto, however, there has 
existed no uniform and authoritative edition in English of the 
plays of which so much has been said and written. An arrange- 
ment has been concluded with Henrik IBsEN, under which will 
be published a uniform series of his prose plays. Most of them 
will be translated and all will be carefully revised by Mr. William 
Archer, author of the translation of 4 Doll’s House, performed in 
June 1889 at the Novelty Theatre, London. 


eG tae J. 


With Portrait of the Author, and Biographical Introduction 
by WILLIAM ARCHER. 


This volume contains—“‘A DOLL’S HOUSE,” “THE 
LEAGUE OF YOUTH” (never before translated), and “THE 
PILLARS OF SOCIETY.” 


VOL. If. Ready 25th April, Containing 


fematoots, “AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,” AND 
“THE WILD DUCK.” 


Among the Prose Dramas included in further volumes will be 
LADY INGER, THE WARRIORS AT HELGELAND, THE PRETENDERS, 
ROSMERSHOLM, THE LADY FROM THE SEA etc. The sequence 
of the plays 7” each volume will be chronological; and the set of 
volumes comprising the dramas will thus present them, when 
complete, in chronological order. The issue will be bi-monthly. 


New York: SCRIBNER & WELFORD. 


GREAT W RUD 


A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES, 


Edited by Professor ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A. 


LIBRARY EDITION.—Printed on large paper of extra quality, in handsome 
binding, Demy 8vo, price $1.00 each. 


VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED, 


Balzac. 
‘© A finished study, a concentrated summary, a succinct analysis of 
Balzac’s successes and failures, and the causes of these successes and 
failures, and of the-scope of his genius.” —Scottish Leader. 


Bronté, Charlotte. By Augustine Birrell. 
‘“ Those who know much of Charlotte Bronté wlll learn more, and those 
who know nothing about her will find all that is best worth learning in 
Mr. Birrell’s pleasant book.” —S¢. James’ Gazette. 


Bunyan. By Canon Venables. 


‘‘ A most intelligent, appreciative, and valuable memoir.” —Scotsman. 


Burns. By Professor Blackie. 
‘‘The editor certainly made a hit when he persuaded Blackie to write 
~ about Burns.”—/fall Mall Gazette. 


Carlyle, Thomas. By Richard Garnett, LL.D. 
‘¢This is an admirable book. Nothing could be more felicitous and 
fairer than the way in which he takes us through Carlyle’s life and works.” 
—Fall Mall Gazette. 


Coleridge. By Hall Caine. 


‘* Brief and vigorous, written throughout with spirit and great literary 
skill,” — Scotsman, 


Congreve. By Edmund Gosse. 
‘* Mr. Gosse has written an admirable and most interesting biography of 
a man of letters who is of particular interest to other men of letters.” — Zhe 
Academy. 


Crabbe. By T. E. Kebbel. 
‘*No English poet since Shakespeare has observed certain aspects of 
nature and of human life more closely. . . . Mr. Kebble’s monograph is 
worthy of the subject.” —<Asheneum. . 


Darwin. By G. T. Bettany. 
‘‘Mr. G. T. Bettany’s Zzfe of Darwin is a sound and conscientious 
work.” — Saturday Review. 


Dickens. By Frank T. Marzials. 

‘* Notwithstanding the mass of matter that has been printed relating to 
Dickens and his works . . . we should, until we came across this volume, 
have been at a loss to recommend any popular life of England’s most 
popular novelist as being really satisfactory, The difficulty is removed by 
Mr. Marzials’s little book.”— Atheneum. 


Emerson. By Richard Garnett, LL.D. 


‘*As to the larger section of the public . . . no record of Emerson’s 
life and work could be more desirable, both in breadth of treatment and 
lucidity of style, than Dr. Garnett’s.”—Saturday Review. 


Goethe. By James Sime. 
‘Mr. James Sime’s competence as a biographer of Goethe, both in 
respect of knowledge of his special subject, and of German literature 
generally, is beyond question.” —Manchester Guardian. 
Goldsmith. By Austin Dobson. 


“‘The story of his literary and social life in London, with all its 
humorous and pathetic vicissitudes, is here retold, as none could tell it 
better.” —Dazly News. 

Heine. By William Sharp. 


*‘ This is an admirable monograph . . . more fully written up to the 
level of recent knowledge and criticism of its theme than any other English 
work.” — Scotsman. 


Hugo, Victor. By F. T. Mavrzials. 


‘Mr. Marzials’s volume presents to us, in a more handy form than any 
English, or even French handbook gives, the summary of what, up to the 
moment in which we write, is known or conjectured about the life of the 
great poet.” —Saturday Review. 


Johnson, Samuel. By Colonel F. Grant. 
** Colonel Grant has performed his task with diligence, sound judgment, 
good taste, and accuracy.” —J///lustrated London News. 


Keats. By W. M. Rossetti. 


“‘Valuable for the ample information which it contains.” — Cambridge 
Independent. 


Lessing. By T. W. Rolleston. 


**Mr. Rolleston has written on Lessing one of the best books of the 
series in which his treatise appears.” —A/anchester Guardian. 


Longfellow. By Professor Eric S. Robertson. 
**A most readable little work.” —Zzverpool Mercury. 
Marryat. By David Hannay. 
“We have nothing but praise for the manner in which Mr. Hannay has 
done justice to him whom he well calls ‘ one of the most brilliant and the 
least fairly recognised of English novelists.’ —Saturday Review. 


Milton. By Richard Garnett, LL.D. 
** Within equal compass the life-story of the great poet of Puritanism has 
never been more charmingly or adequately told.” — Scottish Leader. 
Mill. By W. L. Courtney. 
‘* A most sympathetic and discriminating memoir.”—Glasyow Herald. 
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. By Joseph Knight. 
‘*Mr. Knight’s picture of the great poet and painter is the fullest and 
best yet presented to the public.”— Zhe Graphic. 
Schiller. By Henry W. Nevinson. 
** Presents the leading facts of the poet’s life in a neatly rounded picture, 


and gives an adequate critical estimate of each of Schiller’s separate works, 
and the effect of the whole upon literature.” —Scotsman. 





New York: ScRIBNER & WELFORD, 


Scott. By Professor Yonge. 


**For readers and lovers of the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott, 
this is a most enjoyable book.” —Aberdeen Free Press. 


Shelley. By William Sharp. 
‘* The criticisms . . . entitle this capital monograph to be ranked with 
the best biographies of Shelley.” — Westminster Review. 
Smith, Adam. By R. B. Haldane, M.P. 
** Written with a perspicuity seldom exemplified when dealing with 
economic science.” —Scotsman. 
Smollett. By David Hannay. 


‘* A capital record of a writer who still remains one of the great masters 
of the English novel.” —Saturday Review. 


The following Volumes will shortly be Issued :— 
LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. By Oscar Browning. 
LIFE OF JANE AUSTEN. By Goldwin Smith. 


Complete Bibliography to each volume, by J. P. ANDERSON, British Museum. 


Volumes are in preparation by Goldwin Smith, Frederick Wedmore, Oscar Browning, 
Arthur Symons, W. E. Henley, H. E. Watts, Cosmo Monkhouse, Frank T. Marzials, 
W. H. Pollock, John Addington Symonds, Hon. Roden Noel, Stepniak, Moncure 
Conway, Prof. Wallace, etc., etc. 





Quarto, cloth elegant, gilt edges, emblematic design on cover, $2.25. 
May also be had in a variety of Fancy Bindings. 


THE MUSIC OF THE Gis 


A MUSICIANS’ BIRTHDAY BOOK. 


EDITED BY ELEONORE D’ESTERRE KEELING. 


This is a unique Birthday Book. Against each date are given the names of 
musicians whose birthday it is, together with a verse-quotation appropriate to 
the character of their different compositions or performances, A special 
feature of the book consists in the reproduction in fac-simile of autographs, 
and autographic music, of living composers. The selections of verse (from 
before Chaucer to the present time) have been made with admirable critical 
insight. English verse is rich in utterances of the poets about music, and 
merely as a volume of poetry about music this book makes a charming 
anthology. Three sonnets by Mr, Theodore Watts, on the ‘‘ Fausts ” of 
Berlioz, Schumann, and Gounod, have been written specially for this volume. 
It is illustrated with designs of various musical instruments, etc,; autographs 
of Rubenstein, Dvorik, Greig, Mackenzie, Villiers Stanford, ete., ete. 


“To musical amateurs this will certainly prove the most 


attractive birthday book ever published.”—Manchester Guardian. 

‘‘One of those happy ideas that seems to have been yearning 
for fulfilment. . . . The book ought to have a place on every 
music stand.”—Scottish Leader. 


New York: SCRIBNER & WELFORD, 





+ 


Ca 





Doty T 


BOSTON COLLEGE 


VOU WAC 


3 NI An 7 


| 


DOES NOT CIRCULATE 


er 
AYN RNTECAZZA 


BOSTON COLLEGE: LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS 
CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 


Books may be kept for two weeks and may 
be renewed for the same period, unless re- 
served. 

Two cents a day is charged for each book 
kept overtime. 

If you cannot find what you want, ask the 


Librarian who will be glad to help you. 


The borrower is responsible for books drawn 
on his card and for all fines accruing on the 


same. 


® 


CX xa 
~~ 
oy 


eee 


a 


bhatt bith! SP ae 
Maasai goat 
mo LO LAL 
Moae , whe ary 
mr pte be fh + 


ree YS ay 
we ye eae 


Le 


oe 
'y 


“ee 


ow 
Noa 
SSeS 
wae . % 


Se, 


ES 


Sabo 


4 ENE 
rey 
See 
aN Satan 
Vee 


eee 


2 
Coe 
Ney 


= 


Oe 
we 


ort 
PR PeP bts 
¢ eC 


ore 
oe 


Pee seh 
sgdasgtyte meta te 


5 
oan ye geen SS ree ¢ SE 
2 
TS. SIRES SSC RP HC DEM saree 
eS * ; 

Wo pies tae Pts: tbe sty oe 

y : os 7 
: SEP SLSR Hane t a oe ENL 

+ rhe) Pe 


75 rs are 
be aoe ri 
od eos ar 


HOC: 
Bercy 
oppo yes 


oJ 


Deo 
Lee ee See 


Coat . 

eNews 
he eee 
Sees 


Pe ee Ss 
Paes BY 
‘es 

s 


ee, 


tae 


‘ ey 
Bist 
e Ags atat ote ta 


5 
ae 


ct 4S 
vt ia ph ASO 


i 


ae : 


24a 





